Chuck vs the Past
by Notorious JMG
Summary: A decade from now, a crash north of Los Angeles brings back a part of Chuck's life he never expected to see again. Crossover with Firefly.
1. Ghost Riders in the Sky

_Well, I had so much gorram fun writing _Chuck Versus the Future _that I decided to write another one. Y'all enjoy now, ya hear?_

* * *

**5:22 P.M.**

**July 4****th****, 2018**

**Redondo Beach, California**

Chuck Bartowski's life was good. Nearly eleven years since he landed the original Intersect in his brain. There had been "upgrades", as it were – e-mails full of more images to put into the Intersect sent to him, which he viewed and essentially added to the database in his brain.

Of course, he didn't work out in the field with Sarah Walker and John Casey anymore. No, he worked for the Agency now – as the director of the CIA's Intersect project. Codenamed "Omaha", he had agents in 271 cities worldwide, recruited from schools all over the United States – Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, even a few from public schools like Arizona State and South Florida, and one who Chuck himself found at Santa Monica College.

His agents all had brains that operated like his own – they absorbed millions of subliminal images, and then used the databases in their brains for analysis and operations. A regimen of hypnosis was used to train their brains to be able to access the images at will.

Several years after they first met, Chuck and Sarah had started what amounted to a torrid, passionate affair. After a couple of years, however, they realized that while they still cared about each other as friends, their further relationship had become about nothing more than sex. So, they decided to go back to just being friends – hard at first, but for the best.

And it turned out to truly be for the best about six months later, when newly-elected President Bloomberg had appointed Sarah the Deputy Director (Intelligence) of the Central Intelligence Agency. That made her Chuck's immediate superior.

"Well, thank God we decided to end that," Sarah had said. "We would've had to anyway due to the conflict of interest, and that just would've –"

"Been messy?" Chuck said. "Yeah. No kidding."

Meanwhile, Casey's star at Buy More had, oddly enough, risen far more quickly than at the NSA – or so everybody thought. Casey was now the chairman of the board of directors of Buy More, Inc., and had orchestrated its 2016 buy out of CostCo and its later sale of the Nerd Herd to millionaire Charles Irving Bartowski. Casey also happened to carry the rank of colonel in the United States Air Force, and still drew a fairly hefty paycheck from the National Security Agency.

And so, Chuck was the owner of the Nerd Herd. It still had franchises in all Buy More stores worldwide, but it also had separate offices in, interestingly enough, 271 cities worldwide. The manager of each of these stores also just happened to be a CIA officer employed by the Omaha Project.

The afternoon of Independence Day 2018 found Chuck driving from the Nerd Herd's corporate offices in Redondo Beach back to his ocean-view mansion in Rancho Palos Verdes. Well, he owned the mansion, but he lived in the guest house out back. He gave Ellie and Devin the mansion to live in, with their two kids.

As he drove down the Pacific Coast Highway, there was a sudden bolt of light across the sky. Chuck's first thought was fireworks, but it was way too early, and it was way too big for that.

A split second after the bolt of light appeared, there was a gigantic sonic boom. Windows blew out all around Chuck, but the glass in the windows of his Aston Martin DB7 Volante was bulletproof, and managed to hold up under the boom.

A dark shape appeared in the sky, burning and smoking. It was at least 20,000 feet up, but it was pretty clear it was going down. In seconds, it was behind Chuck, heading north, as Chuck headed south on the PCH.

Cranking the wheel over, Chuck hit the gas and yanked the handbrake, spinning the DB7 around in half a second and heading north at nearly the same speed he had been heading south at. He watched the craft go screaming across the sky, trailing smoke behind it. On either side of the road, people were stopping their cars and watching as it went down.

Traffic was starting to get just a **little** bit thick, as the curiosity factor got overwhelming. Chuck turned on the siren and police lights on his Aston Martin and hit the gas, bringing his speed up to just over 100 mph.

"Call: Sarah Walker," he instructed the car.

After one ring, she picked up. "Director Walker," she said.

"Sarah, it's Chuck. There's some – uh, thing about to crash north of Los Angeles. It doesn't look like any airplane I've ever seen, and I just before I saw it, there was a huge flash of light in the sky and a massive sonic boom."

"Jesus," she breathed. "Okay, are you headed that direction?"

"Absolutely," he replied. "I can call up a team to meet me there."

"No, this will be a Homeland Security matter," Sarah warned him. "I do want you up there, but let DHS handle it."

"Right," Chuck said sarcastically. "This should be good."

"Chuck…"

"Yes, ma'am."

He hit a button on his steering wheel, ending the call. As he did, the smoking craft disappeared behind the mountains. Chuck braced himself, expecting a massive fireball and a boom –

But nothing. The smoke trail had stopped, that was certain. Whatever it was that came out of the sky was clearly down. But there had been no explosion.

With no explosion, the curiosity factor diminished rapidly, and Chuck was able to fly up I-405 with fairly reckless abandon. He had to slow a little when it merged with I-5, but the lights and siren cleared a path for him.

As Chuck was nearing the top of the stretch of I-5 known as the Grapevine, his phone rang. "Chuck," Sarah's voice filled the car. "Satellite imagery is showing the smoke trail as stopping outside of a place called Pine Mountain Club. Take exit 204 for Frazier Mountain Park Rd."

"Coming up on it," Chuck said, hitting the gas and cutting across four lines of I-5, earning himself honks and fingers from angry truckers. He flew off the freeway, using his handbrake to turn left onto the road, hardly losing any speed as he went.

"Okay, just stay on the road for about ten miles," Sarah said. "When you reach a road called Mil Potrero Highway, turn right. The crash site is about a mile and a half down the road, at an abandoned camp."

"Copy that," Chuck replied. "I'll call you when I get there."

Hitting the button to hang up, Chuck increased speed. Weaving in and out of trucks and cars going hardly half his speed, he reached Mil Potrero Highway in under ten minutes and hung a hard right. He could see the plume of smoke now, coming up out of the forest.

When Chuck reached the camp driveway, he stood on his brakes, causing his own cloud of smoke to bellow up behind his tires. Cranking the wheel to the left, he stopped in a cloud of dust in front of the locked gate.

Fixing his Bluetooth earpiece to his left ear, he grabbed the phone from its dock in the car. "Call: Sarah Walker," he said.

The phone rang. Sarah answered on the first ring again. "I'm the first one here, Sarah," Chuck said. "I don't know how I beat the Kern County Sheriff, but there's nobody else – wait a second."

Chuck looked toward the cloud of smoke in the middle of the camp. He couldn't believe what he was seeing – a child walking toward him.

"Sarah, I'll call you back," he said, disconnecting.

He ran up to the child. It was a little boy, looked to be about six years old. He had curly red hair, and his clothes were tattered and burned – consistent with a plane crash.

"Hey!" Chuck called. "Hey! Are you okay?"

The little boy looked at him as Chuck walked up to him. Chuck squatted down in front of him. The little boy cocked his head and looked up at Chuck. Then he said something totally unexpected.

"Are you my daddy?"

Chuck looked at him. "What? No, I don't think so… are you alright? You were in an accident."

"You look just like pictures of my daddy," the little boy insisted.

"Must be somebody else," Chuck replied, confused. "Can you show me where the accident was?"

The little boy nodded, then turned, and scampered off.

About two minutes later, Chuck and the little boy reached a ravine. "It's down there," the boy said, pointing.

Chuck couldn't see much through the smoke except for a scar on the mountainside. "What were you in?"

The little boy started to answer, but just then, a gust of wind swept through the ravine and blew away most of the cloud of smoke.

Chuck's eyes went wide and his breath caught in his throat as he recognized the downed craft. "Oh my God…" he whispered. "Oh my God… it can't be."

He just stared for a moment, and then, his reverie was interrupted by the sound of sirens and an approaching helicopter. Coming to his senses, he said, "Call: Sarah Walker."

She took a few rings to pick up this time. "Chuck, can I call you back?" she asked quickly. "I've got the White House on the phone, I've got somebody called Torchwood on the phone… I've got to get this taken –"

"Sarah." Chuck interrupted her rather forcefully.

Recognizing his tone of voice, she said, "Okay, Chuck, what's going on? What have you found?"

He paused for a moment, trying to find the words, but in the end, he spoke only two simple words.

"It's _Serenity_."


	2. Crash and Burn

**6:51 P.M.**

**July 4****th****, 2018**

**Pine Mountain Club, California**

"It's _Serenity_," Chuck said, his voice full of disbelief.

There was stunned silence on the other end for a moment.

"Oh my God," Sarah finally replied. "Are you sure?"

"It's got to be," Chuck said firmly, as he clambered over rocks down into the ravine. "It's a Firefly-class ship, it's got the same markings as_Serenity_. She's pretty fucked up, but it's definitely her."

"What does 'fucked up' mean?" came a little voice from behind Chuck.

"Oh, Christ," Chuck muttered, realizing the little boy was still behind him. Turning around, he said, "You can't say that, okay?"

"Why not?"

"Because," Chuck said. "It's not nice to say it."

"Who the hell are you talking to?" Sarah asked.

"There's a little boy here, he looks about six years old," Chuck replied. "When he saw me, he asked me if I was his daddy."

"Okay, that's weird," Sarah said.

"No shit," Chuck replied. "I mean, no kid-"

It was too late. "What does 'shit' mean?"

Chuck sighed. "Look, Sarah, I'm gonna go. It looks like the sheriff is here. I need to try to get down to _Serenity_, and keep my eye on this kid at the same time."

"Alright," she replied. "It definitely sounds like DHS can't handle this. I'm going to call up your San Joaquin Valley team, then call Casey, and then I'm on my way out there."

"Sounds like a plan," Chuck said, climbing down from one final boulder, parking himself next to a hatch into the ship that had been broken and twisted open. "I'll see you in a few."

He disconnected, and grabbed the edge of the hatch. He pulled, and it moved a little, but didn't give much. "Is this where you came out?" he grunted to the little boy.

"Yes," the boy said. "I climbed up from my mommy's room and found the open door."

"Who's your mommy?" Chuck asked, as he attempted to pull the door off.

"I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," was the answer Chuck got.

Chuck sighed. "Alright, can you at least tell me if she's okay?"

"She wouldn't wake up," the little boy said. "One side of her face was kind of black, and the other side… she was bleeding a little…"

He was starting to cry. "I don't know why Mommy wouldn't wake up… I tried to wake her up, and then the Captain tried to wake her up… he yelled her name over and over again… I'm not allowed to call her Kaylee, but he said it… and then there was a big boom, and we were here."

Chuck felt like his heart had stood still. "Did you say your mommy's name was Kaylee?" he gasped.

The little boy nodded, his eyes wide and his cheeks red and wet.

Chuck turned back to the hatch. He gave it one almighty pull, and it twisted off in his hands. He turned to the boy. "You stay here."

The hatch was just large enough for Chuck to wriggle through, dropping onto the deck below. It was slanted under his feet, pitched upward at the same angle as the ship.

Chuck looked around at a corridor he hadn't seen in over ten years. He knew immediately where he was – the port side hallway, just forward of the shuttles.

Chuck could think of only one place where Kaylee could be that she would've ended up burned and bleeding. He turned toward the back of the ship and started moving, as quickly as he could.

As he passed the shuttles, he came around a corner – and ran smack into Malcolm Reynolds.

Mal's eyes were already wide with fear and shock. He had blood running down his face, and his left shoulder appeared to be dislocated.

His eyes got even wider. "Oh my God…" he whispered. "Oh my God… oh my God…"

"Mal," Chuck said quietly, touching his good shoulder.

"I watched… I watched you leave," Mal said. "You were on _Enterprise_, and it disappeared. Then a year later, Kaylee got that package from you. You're back in the 21st century."

"That's right," Chuck said. "So are you."

Mal's jaw dropped open in shock. "That's impossible."

"I know," Chuck replied, a renewed sense of urgency filling his voice. "But we don't have time for that right now. Kaylee's hurt in the engine room."

"Yeah," said Mal. "I couldn't get her to wake up."

"Let's go," Chuck said, pushing forward.

He reached the door of the engine compartment. The door was partway open. Chuck pushed the button on the panel next to it to open it, but there was no power. Pushing, he slowly slid the door open and squeezed into engineering.

Kaylee lay on the floor next to the drive. It was clear to Chuck that the drive unit had torn itself apart. Scorch marks were evident on the wall behind Kaylee, and the right hand side of her face was slightly burned. Her clothes were charred, but intact.

"Good God," Chuck gasped, running across the compartment to her. He slid his arms under Kaylee, and picked her up. The left hand side of her face was bleeding from a deep gash, and there was bruising all around it.

Kaylee felt as light as a feather. Chuck turned, and exited the compartment. "Mal!" he shouted. "Mal!"

Mal staggered across the cargo bay to where Chuck stood. "Can we get the bay doors open?"

"Yeah, uh, there should still be enough emergency battery power," Mal responded.

Shaking his head in an attempt to reorient himself, Mal hit a series of buttons on the panel. The door slowly groaned open.

"I'm going to get Kaylee to safety," Chuck shouted. "You go get Zoe and Inara and Simon and River and Jayne."

"Inara isn't with us anymore," Mal said dazedly. "She left the ship a while back."

Chuck looked at him for a moment, then made a decision. "Okay, Mal, you go outside with Kaylee, and I'll go get the others."

He could barely bring himself to hand Kaylee to Mal and let go of her, but he did. Mal staggered up the ramp out into the rapidly fading daylight, as Chuck dashed back into the bowels of the ship.

Zoe, Simon, and Jayne were all in the crew mess, unconscious. Chuck managed to wake Simon and Zoe up, but Jayne had a lump the size of a golf ball on his head.

"Chuck?" Zoe gasped. "Is that really you?"

"Yeah, it's really me, and we don't have time to discuss this right now," Chuck replied. "Take Jayne out through the cargo bay, and be careful – he might have a spinal injury."

"I'm supposed to say that," Simon said, sounding drunk.

Chuck shook his head and continued forward. When he reached the control room, he found River, strapped into her seat, staring straight forward, her hands wrapped around the control yoke with a white knuckle grip.

"River?" he said softly.

"I… crashed…_Serenity_…"

"River, it's okay," Chuck said.

"I… crashed…_Serenity_…"

Chuck peered around the front of her face, and then waved his hand in front of her eyes. No reaction.

Unstrapping River, he lifted her out of the seat. Gingerly, he made his way back to the aft end of the ship, carrying River up the ramp and out.

When he reached the exterior of the ship, he could see that local law and fire was present in large quantities. A helicopter sat in an open space about five hundred feet away. Three ambulances were parked at the edge of the ravine, and more police cars than you could shake a fist at crowded the camp.

As Chuck came up out of the ship, a team of paramedics ran up to him. As they took River from him and laid her on a stretcher, one of them said, "Were you on board the ship, sir?"

"No," Chuck replied, distractedly. "I'm with the CIA… did you see a little boy?"

"Yes, sir," the paramedic said. "He's over at the first ambulance. He keeps saying that the woman we have in there is his mother."

Chuck turned from the paramedic and ran to the ambulance. Inside, they had Kaylee on a respirator. The heart monitor she was on showed her pulse was weak and steady. The little boy sat on a bench inside the ambulance, crying.

"Where are you taking her?" Chuck asked.

"Uh, Henry Mayo, down in Santa Clarita," one of the paramedics said.

"No, no," Chuck responded. "Get her onboard that helicopter and take her to Cedars Sinai."

"Hey, buddy, I work for the ambulance service," the medic said. "That helicopter belongs to the Ventura County Sheriff."

"Ventura – what the hell are they – never mind," Chuck said, exasperated. "Come with me."

He sprinted over to the helicopter, the medic behind him. "Who's in charge here?" he shouted, trying to make himself heard over the noise of the aircraft's engines.

"That's me," a man in a sheriff's uniform said. "Deputy Mark Crisman. Who the hell are you?"

Ignoring the sheriff's question, Chuck shouted, "There's a woman in an ambulance over there. She's been badly burned. I want her loaded on this helicopter and taken to Cedars-Sinai right now!"

"And I want to have sex with Hilary Duff!" the deputy shouted back.

Blood rushed to Chuck's head and he grabbed the deputy by the collar. Slamming him against the helicopter, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his I.D. Not his standard issue CIA I.D., but rather one that had a black stripe with a single off-center red band on it.

"You know what this means?" Chuck growled, shoving the I.D. in the deputy's face.

The deputy's eyes went wide and his face went pale. "Oh my God… a national command authority I.D… I never thought I'd actually…"

"Shut up and get her loaded," Chuck snapped. "When you land at Cedars-Sinai, tell them that this is an Echo Park casualty."

Chuck turned away and headed back toward the crash site. Behind him, the deputy snapped into action, barking orders at the other deputies and the paramedics. Chuck shoved his presidential-issue I.D. back into his pocket. "Call: Sarah Walker," he growled.

"I'm sorry, I didn't understand your request," his phone replied.

"Jesus H. CHRIST," he barked.

"I'm sorry, I didn'-"

Chuck yanked the Bluetooth from his ear and hurled it into the forest. Grabbing his phone from his pocket, he dialed Sarah's direct line and held the phone to his ear.

It rang once, and then, "This is Director Walker. I'm sorry, but I'm in flight right-"

Chuck, of course, knew how to override, and punched in his emergency code.

After a moment and three more rings, the phone was answered. "Director Walker."

"Sarah, it's them alright," Chuck said. "Zoe and Simon were banged up a little. I think Mal and Jayne both have concussions. They're being taken to Henry Mayo to get checked out. Inara wasn't with them."

Sarah was quiet for a moment. "Chuck…" she said.

"Yeah!"

"What about Kaylee?"

Chuck looked at his feet. He hadn't seen her for over ten years, but the time that had passed hadn't diminished the way he felt about her at all. Now, to see her like this, the first time he'd seen her in so long…

"Chuck?"

He sighed deeply. "She doesn't look good," he said. "She was burned pretty badly. The drive ripped itself apart, and it looked the explosion threw her against the wall behind her. She was bleeding badly from her head, and she probably has some internal injuries too. They're taking her to Cedars on my orders. I said to tell Cedars that she's an Echo Park."

In the background, he could hear Sarah relaying this information to other people, presumably on the plane. Then he heard John Casey's voice say something in the background that he couldn't quite make out, followed by another voice. The second was familiar, but Chuck couldn't quite place it.

"Uh, Chuck?" Sarah said, coming back on the line.

"Still here."

"Casey had some choice things to say. Colonel Tweedum said to tell you that Kaylee will be in his prayers."

Colonel Michael Tweedum. That's who it was. The co-pilot on _Enterprise_ on the mission to retrieve Chuck from the 26th century years earlier, now Sarah's personal pilot.

"Tell Mike I said thank you," Chuck said. Turning, he saw the helicopter lifting off. "I've gotta go," he said, and hung up the phone without waiting for Sarah.

As the helicopter gained altitude and flew up and out of the valley, Chuck dashed across the campground to his DB7. He backed out of the driveway in a cloud of dust, and fishtailed as he dropped the car into drive, accelerating up the highway.

Chuck had kept a photo of Kaylee in the glovebox of his cars for years. Even during the affair with Sarah, he'd always had the photo. Now, he reached in the glovebox, and pulled it out.

"Hang on," he whispered, holding the photo against the steering wheel. "Hang on, Kaylee."


	3. It's Complicated

**1:59 P.M.**

**July 6****th****, 2018**

**Cedars-Sinai Hospital**

**Beverly Hills, California**

It was darkness. All darkness.

She looked around. Saw nothing but darkness.

But wait. There. There was a brightness behind the darkness. And a sound.

_Beep…_

She headed toward the brightness.

_Beep… beep…_

The brightness filled her vision, and then she saw.

_Beep… beep… beep…_

She saw shapes, lights. But she could only see out of her left eye.

_Beep… beep… beep… beep…_

She began to be able to focus on things. She saw a clock. She saw an I.V. pole next to her. She saw the source of the beeping – her heart monitor.

_Beep… beep… beep… beep… beep…_

But she wasn't on_Serenity_. She wasn't in the infirmary. She was in a hospital somewhere. Slowly, she lifted her wrist, and was able to read her hospital.

"Kaywinnit Lee Frye," it read. "Cedars-Sinai Hospital."

_Cedars-Sinai Hospital_, she thought. She didn't know that hospital. It wasn't on any planet she'd ever been to. It wasn't on the Core planets.

She tried to speak. Only breath came out. Focusing herself, she managed to get a word out.

"Hel…lo?"

She heard rustling cloth, and then a little voice spoke.

"Mommy?"

She slowly rolled her head to the left. A little boy. Her little boy.

"Hi there," she whispered, smiling. "How you doin', Chuck?"

"What?" she heard a voice say behind her. A familiar voice. A _very_ familiar voice.

As she slowly rolled back over to her right, she heard the voice say, "How did you know I was here?"

But she hadn't. Her open eye went wide as she realized who it was.

"Chuck?" she gasped. "Chuck!"

"Hi, Kaylee," he said with a smile.

She couldn't believe her eyes. "You… you look… you look old," she whispered.

Chuck cocked his head to the side. "Good to see you too," he replied wryly.

Then his face wrinkled as a certain confusion crossed his mind. "If you didn't know I was here, why did you ask me how I was doing?"

"Not you," Kaylee replied. "Him. Little Chuck."

Chuck looked at Kaylee, and then at the little boy, and had the closest thing to a flash he'd ever had outside of the Intersect.

Curly red hair. Brown eyes. Pointed chin. _"Are you my daddy?"_

Chuck's eyes went wide. "Oh my God," he gasped. "Little Chuck… there's no way…"

Kaylee raised her eyebrow and nodded. "Yep. Trust me. Nine months of most definitely."

"But… there was only… there was like three times!"

"Simon tells me it only takes once," Kaylee joked weakly.

Chuck was dumbstruck. He staggered backward and landed in a chair behind him, his head in his hands.

For the first time in years, Chuck Bartowski was utterly speechless.

* * *

**3:02 P.M.**

**Los Angeles International Airport**

Morgan Grimes was waiting at the bottom of the stairway as Sarah Walker and John Casey exited the CIA plane. "What's the situation, Morgan?" she called over the noises of the airport.

"We've got a team covering the crash site in Kern County," he replied. "The crew of _Serenity_ are all conscious at Henry Mayo, and they're under heavy security – I've got NSA on their rooms, and Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has a perimeter on the hospital."

"What about Kaylee Frye?" she asked.

"She's at Cedars-Sinai," Morgan said simply, as they started walking toward the waiting Lincoln. "They had to do a skin graft on her right arm, but otherwise, her burns weren't too severe. They had to do a bowel resection to repair a perforated intestine, and her right lung had to be re-inflated. She's still in lousy condition, but she's stable, and she's expected to be alright. She woke up about forty minutes ago."

"Was Chuck there?" Sarah asked as they got into the car.

"Yeah," said Morgan, buckling his seatbelt. "Here's the thing, though. He's in a bit of shock."

"Really?" Sarah said. "I don't understand. You said Kaylee's going to be alright."

"Wellll…" Morgan hesitated. "Did he mention to you that he ran into a kid at the crash site?"

"Yes," Sarah replied, confused. "I don't understand."

"Turns out, the kid is Kaylee's kid," Morgan replied.

"Okay," Sarah intoned. "I still don't get it."

"The kid's name is Charles Irving Frye."

Sarah's eyes went wide, and Casey spoke for the first time.

"Oh, shiiiit!" he laughed.

* * *

**3:30 P.M.**

**Cedars-Sinai Medical Center**

Chuck sat outside Kaylee's room. She had fallen asleep again shortly after telling him that Little Chuck was his son.

Of all the things Chuck had had to deal with in the last eleven years, this one was far more mind-boggling than anything else. He was having a very difficult time dealing with it.

When Chuck felt a tug on his pants leg, he lifted his head from his hands and looked up. Little Chuck was standing in front of him.

"So, are you my daddy?" he asked.

Chuck nodded. "Yeah, I guess I am."

Little Chuck climbed up in the chair beside him. "How'd you meet my mommy?" he asked.

"Well…" Chuck paused. He didn't have a clue where to start. "Well… about eleven years ago, I got a computer stuck in my head."

"What do you mean?"

"A friend of mine sent me an e-mail," Chuck said. "It had… um, it had a whole lot of pictures in it that had all been in a big computer.

"They all got stuck in my head, and sometimes, if I saw something, it would make me see some of the pictures and understand something else."

The little boy nodded, looking as if he was doing his best to comprehend what Chuck was saying.

"There were these people," Chuck continued. "Bad people. They called themselves Fulcrum."

"Fulcrum?" the boy asked. Chuck nodded. "A fulcrum is a support or point of support on which a lever turns."

"Yes," said Chuck. "And these guys thought they were the point on which my whole country turned. They wanted to get me, because I had the computer in my head. But I wouldn't go with them, and my friends wouldn't let them take me.

"So, they used this device they had found, and sent me 500 years into the future."

"Wow," little Chuck said. "That's a long time."

"Yes it is," Chuck replied. "The device dropped me in your mommy's ship – the_Serenity_. That's when I met her. To make a long story short, your mommy and I fell in love, and then I had to go back to my own time. After I left, your mommy had you, but I didn't know."

"So…" little Chuck started. "Are we… are we in your time?"

"Yes," Chuck said. "It's the year 2018."

"I see. We were in 2526."

"2526…" Chuck mused. "So… you're only six years old, right?"

"Yeah."

"That's weird," Chuck breathed. "A three year time differential…"

"What?"

"It's been ten years since the last time I saw your mommy," Chuck explained. "But it's only been seven years since the last time she saw me."

"I don't understand."

"Neither do I," Chuck said. "Neither do I."

* * *

**4:45 P.M.**

**Cedars-Sinai Medical Center**

The Beverly Center cast a long shadow over the entrance to Cedars-Sinai as Sarah, Casey, and Morgan walked in. Sarah flashed her I.D. at the F.B.I. agent standing at the door, and he stepped aside, opening the door for them.

Sarah crossed the lobby to the reception desk. "Kaywinnit Lee Frye," she said, showing her I.D. again. "Where is she?"

"Third floor, room twenty-four," the receptionist replied.

The three took the elevator to the third floor. "Rooms 21-40," the sign said, with an arrow pointing to the right. They turned right as they exited the elevator, and right away, saw Chuck and a little boy sitting outside of a room.

Morgan practically ran up to them. He crouched down in front of the boy, looked at him, and then looked at Chuck. "My God," he said. "He looks just like you did when you were a kid!"

"My name is Charles Irving Frye," the boy said. "But you can call me Chuck. What's your name?"

"I'm Morgan Grimes," he replied. "I'm your dad's best friend."

"You are?" little Chuck said, looking confused. "Why isn't my mommy his best friend?"

Morgan opened his mouth, and looked like he was going to say something, but nothing happened except his face developing a very confused look. "Uh… ah… it…"

"It's complicated, kid," Casey said.

"Complicated?" little Chuck asked.

"Yeah," said Casey.

Little Chuck thought about that a moment. "That's what adults always say when they don't want to tell the truth."

That caused Sarah to break into a smile. "He is **definitely** your kid," she said to Chuck.

"What's your name?" little Chuck asked, looking at Sarah.

"I'm Sarah Walker," she replied. "I'm your dad's friend and his boss."

"Oh," he said. "Did you know that some of your hair is gray?"

"Oookay!" Chuck said, picking the boy up. "Why don't we go see your mommy?"

"Okay, Daddy."

Chuck and little Chuck disappeared into Kaylee's room. Morgan looked at Sarah and then at Casey. "Can you believe this?!"

Casey just laughed. "This is **great**," he said. "Didn't that boy ever hear of a condom?"

Sarah rolled her eyes and sighed. "Casey…"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

* * *

**6:20 P.M.**

"Where's Chuck gonna stay?" Kaylee asked softly.

"I'm going to take him to my sister's house," Chuck replied. "She and her husband can watch him. They've got two kids, one who's seven, one five, so he'll have somebody to play with."

"He's never really spent a lot of time around other kids," Kaylee whispered. "Are you sure he'll be okay?"

"He'll be fine," Chuck replied. "Kids are like that."

"Does your sister know?"

Chuck shook his head. "I never told her about what happened. I couldn't. And I didn't even know I had a son until today."

He paused. "But I guess I'm going to have to tell her now."

"I'm sure she'll understand, Chuck," Kaylee said. "If she's as smart as her brother and her nephew…"

"You're probably right," Chuck said.

Taking little Chuck's hand, he said, "We should probably get going so you can sleep."

He looked at little Chuck. "Say good night to your mommy."

"Good night, Mommy," the boy said.

"Good night, little Chuck," Kaylee replied. "I love you."

Chuck lifted him up so he could give Kaylee a kiss, and then he set him back down on the floor. "Good night, Kaylee," he said.

"Good night, Chuck."

Chuck and his son were almost out the door, when Kaylee softly said, "Chuck?"

He turned around and looked back at her. "Kaylee?"

She looked at him, and he could see a certain longing in her uncovered eye. It looked like she wanted to say something else, desperately wanted to say it.

But "Good night," was all she said.


	4. 140 Over 90 and Rising

_**Author's note:**__ Okay, so I realized something as I was reviewing chapter 3, and that is that I have Sarah Walker as the DD(I) of the CIA, still using her Sarah Walker cover. As has been established in canon, that is not her real name; however, for simplicity's sake, I will continue to use that. I am going to explain it away this way:_

_Chuck was Sarah's last field assignment before getting promoted into an office position. At that point, she had spent so much time in the Sarah Walker identity that she had become Sarah Walker, and her real identity was unfamiliar to her. As such, she chose to remain in the Sarah Walker identity._

_Rock on._

* * *

**7:30 P.M.**

**July 6****th****, 2018**

**Rancho Palos Verdes, California**

As Chuck pulled up in front of his house, he realized that he hadn't been home since the morning of the 4th. He suddenly found himself exhausted and feeling in desperate need of a shower.

However, he had the feeling it was going to be a while before he showered or slept.

"Is this where you live?" little Chuck gasped, his eyes growing wide. His reaction to the Aston Martin had been one of shock, but it was nothing compared to this.

"Well, actually, my sister and her family live here," Chuck replied. "I own the house, but there's a little house out back that I live in, because this is too big for just me."

As Chuck walked up the path of the mansion with little Chuck in his wake, he asked himself yet again why he'd bought the place. It was far too big for him, too big even for Ellie and Awesome's family.

He thought about the path that had led him there. In 2014, when General Beckman, then the director of the NSA, had suggested that perhaps Chuck would like to become the director of the Omaha Project, Chuck had had some thoughts. After confirming that if he were to take this position, the CIA and the NSA would have to publicly recognize Chuck as a CIA asset and acknowledge the existence of the Intersect, Chuck sat down one night with Casey and Sarah for a very long talk.

Two days later, Chuck filed suit in the Los Angeles district federal court against the United States government for mental and emotional trauma and use of his brain without his consent. Sarah, Casey, and Bryce all testified, and in the end, the case went to the Supreme Court, which judged that the United States government was, in fact, liable for Chuck's "pain and suffering", and awarded him a settlement of one hundred eighty-three million dollars.

Afterwards, journalists and members of the bar were surprised to see Chuck speaking pleasantly with General Beckman and CIA Director Graham. What the "experts" didn't know – and what, in fact, only a handful of people, including Chuck, Sarah, Casey, and Bryce knew – was that the whole lawsuit had been a ploy to strip away layers of protective corruption built up over many years at the CIA, and finally exposing and destroying the roots of Fulcrum. In fact, the settlement had been paid out of Fulcrum's "black" budget.

And so, Chuck was $183,000,000 richer, and Fulcrum was history. Chuck, flush with wealth, had driven down to RPV, and purchased the first house he saw with a for sale sign.

Now, Chuck shook his head at his lack of reason. He stood on the stoop, and pressed the doorbell, despite having a key in his pocket.

Devin answered the door. "Yo, Chuckster!" he said, hand in the air for a high five. Then he took in Chuck's appearance. "Wow," he said. "You definitely do not look awesome."

"Yeah, thanks," Chuck replied wryly.

"Who's the little dude?" Devin asked as he shut the door.

"About that…" Chuck hesitated. "I need to talk to you and Ellie about some stuff."

"Not a problem!" Devin replied. "Sweetheart, can you come out here for a moment?" he called toward the kitchen.

As he called to Ellie, two small children came out of seemingly nowhere and started running around Devin's legs. "Whoa, whoa, munchkins," he said. "Jordan, why don't you run upstairs and play. Mike, uh, go upstairs and keep your little sister company, okay?"

Chuck rolled his eyes, remembering seven years earlier, the joy when Michael had been born, and then the dismay two years later when Devin and Ellie had a daughter, Devin had insisted on naming her Jordan, and Ellie had been totally clueless.

"What is it, babe – hi, Chuck!" Ellie said, coming up to her brother and wrapping him in a hug. "What's up?"

"My blood pressure," muttered Chuck, plopping down on the loveseat. Little Chuck clambered up next to him.

"Really?" Ellie asked with concern. "If that's true, you need to get that checked out, like tomorrow. Hypertension is no joking matter, Chuck."

Then, noticing the little boy on the couch with Chuck, she said, "And who is that little boy?"

Chuck put his hand to his face, closed his eyes, and rubbed them for a moment. Opening them, he tiredly looked at Ellie and Devin.

"Guys," he started, "I'd like you to meet Charles Irving Frye, age six.

"He's my son."

* * *

**7:38 P.M.**

**Somewhere over the San Joaquin Valley, California**

There was a small pop, and a flash of silvery light. A small aircraft, no bigger than a fighter, popped into being – and simply hovered.

The pilot took a moment to get his bearings. "Ah, that way," he rasped, an almost metallic voice coming out of his mouth.

He could see the crash site from forty miles away. Kern County Sheriff's Department and the CIA San Joaquin Valley team had it lit up bright as the sun. Coming in quietly and slowly, he did a quick flyby. That was enough for him to see that _Serenity_ had not been destroyed.

"Shit," he muttered. This made things infinitely more difficult.

* * *

**7:39 P.M.**

**Rancho Palos Verdes, California**

"Your son?!" Ellie and Devin said nearly in unison.

"It's a long, long story," Chuck replied wearily.

"We got all KINDS of time," Ellie grumped, a look of determination settling itself on her face.

_Oh, joy_, Chuck thought. But there was no getting out of this one.

"Well… where to start," he said, trying to stall.

"How 'bout the beginning, Mr. Bartowski?" Ellie said impatiently.

Chuck looked at the ceiling and sighed. "Oookay. Do you remember Christmas 2007?"

"How could I forget Christmas 2007?" Ellie asked. "You were in a coma in Northridge."

"Yeah, about that," Chuck replied. "I wasn't actually in a coma."

Ellie gave him a look of disbelief. "Are you kidding me?" Her eyes grew dark like they always did when she was angry, and a vein began to stand out on her forehead. "Was this another one of those goddamn CIA things?!"

"Ellie, please calm down," Chuck said, trying to speak in a soothing tone. "And please don't swear in front of my son."

"But Daddy, you said fu-"

"Not now, Chuck," Chuck said, looking down at his son and making what he hoped would come across as an "I'll explain later" face.

Ellie had pressed her hands together as if she was praying and held them against the center of her face. She breathed deeply as Devin rubbed her back and sent Chuck a "Glad I'm not in your shoes" look.

Finally, she looked up at him. "Fine. I won't swear in front of him. But you better start explaining."

"Okay," Chuck said. "This is going to sound really wild and unbelievable, but I guarantee you every last bit is true. Anything you don't believe, Sarah or Casey will verify."

"Ah, those two bastions of trustworthiness," Ellie snarked.

Chuck was nearing the last fray of his last nerve. "Look," he snapped, "do you want to hear the fu- uh, friggin' story or not?"

Ellie just looked at him. "Go ahead," she said simply.

Reaching into his memory, Chuck began his narrative.

"Early on the morning of Christmas Eve 2007, I got a call for a Nerd Herd fix. It turned out the call was actually placed by a member of Fulcrum.

"Using a device they had stolen from Area 51, they managed to send me 500 years into the future – the year 2518, to be exact. My Herder crashed in the cargo bay of a spaceship called _Serenity_.

"Back here, it didn't take Sarah and Casey very long to figure out what had happened. They used…um…"

Chuck took a moment to think of the proper term. "Um… extraordinary renditions to determine what had happened. As soon as they figured it out, the NSA put together a rescue mission using a ship and a device that will be classified for at least the next forty years still.

"So, Sarah and Casey came forward in time to where I was. However, they had to search for me, and it took them nearly two months to find me.

"During that time, I had begun a relationship with one of the crew of _Serenity_, named Kaylee Frye."

"That's my mommy!" little Chuck piped up.

"Yes, it is," Chuck said. "Now, as silly as it may sound, we connected and fell in love. Obviously, we had sex," he said, gesturing toward little Chuck with his left hand, "though I didn't know she was pregnant when Sarah and Casey found me and we left.

"We arrived back on Earth on January 3rd, 2008. I was debriefed for a little over a week, and then, on January 14th, as you probably remember quite well, I was sent back home – just not from the hospital.

"Two days ago, there was an airplane crash north of the city."

"Yeah," Devin said. "I saw that on the news – they said it was a military plane, and that the site was sealed off so they could investigate it."

"That's what they said, all right," Chuck replied. "But what it really was was the spaceship – _Serenity_. Somehow, it got thrown into our time, and it was already heavily damaged when it entered our atmosphere, which is why it crashed.

"I was the first person there. I found this little guy when I arrived. I didn't realize then who he was. However, I did find the crew of the ship alive, although they were all pretty badly beat up. The captain, the first mate, the doctor, and their, well, security guy were all hurt, but not too severely. Their pilot was catatonic from crashing the ship, and Kaylee – well, she was the engineer, and she was really badly hurt.

"She's at Cedars-Sinai right now. She woke up a few hours ago, and that was when I found out that little Chuck is my son."

He paused. Ellie was staring at him with her jaw open, her eyes wide as saucers. Devin, on the other hand, sat back on the couch, and crossed his arms.

"Awesome."

Ellie closed her eyes, put her face in her hands, and shook her head. "Okay, wait a minute, wait a minute," she said. "As wild and far-fetched as the whole time travel bit sounds, I actually think you're telling me the truth."

She looked up and stared Chuck in the eye. "What I do not believe, though, is that Chuck Bartowski would finally truly fall in love and then leave the girl behind."

"What would you have liked me to do?" Chuck asked angrily. "Stay? Let you and Devin and Morgan and everybody else think I was DEAD? I came back for all of you! It tore me apart to leave! I begged her to come with me, but she stayed for the same reason I left – FAMILY."

Without even thinking about it, Chuck had risen to his feet. Now he started pacing the floor. His face and neck were bright red, and veins were standing out along the sides of his neck.

"Chuck, sit down," Ellie said softly.

"I don't want to sit down," Chuck snapped.

"Dude, you should really sit down," Devin said quietly.

Chuck turned to look at him, and saw that Devin was being completely serious. Taking a deep breath, he sat back down.

As soon as he sat down, Ellie came and sat down on the armrest beside him. "Roll the cuff of your shirt sleeve back," she ordered. Chuck obeyed.

Placing her index and middle fingertips on the veins in Chuck's wrist, she kept her fingers there for a moment. "I thought you were joking about high blood pressure," she said, removing her fingers from his wrist.

"I was," Chuck replied, confused. "What… what are you talking about?"

"Are you going back to Cedars-Sinai tomorrow to see this, uh…"

"Kaylee," little Chuck chimed in.

"Kaylee?"

"Yeah," Chuck said. "Of course."

"Okay," Ellie replied. "While you're there, I want you to go to their cardiology department and see Dr. Donald Russell. Your blood pressure is way, way up, and you need to do something about it. Dr. Russell and I go a ways back, he'll be happy to help you out, and he's way better than any of those government doctors the CIA will send you to."

"Alright," Chuck relented. "Listen… can little Chuck stay with you guys for a few nights, until we get everything figured out?"

"Absolutely," Ellie said quickly.

"Okay, then, I'm gonna grab a Coke and head to bed," Chuck said tiredly.

"No you're not," Ellie replied firmly.

"I can't go to sleep?" Chuck asked.

"No, you can't have a Coke," Ellie said. "Sixty milligrams of sodium in a can. Not with your blood pressure the way it is, no way. Have some juice, or some water or something. But no soda, and no coffee."

"Next you'll be telling me no beer," Chuck grumbled as he headed for the door.

"AND DEFINITELY NO ALCOHOL!"


	5. Kaylee's Beverly Center Adventure

**2:47 A.M.**

**July 11****th****, 2018**

**Washington, D.C.**

Bob Richter's phone jarred him from his sleep. "Uhm-mggah," he groaned, rolling over to grab his phone.

_Number blocked_, it said. "Thhell?" he slurred.

"'llo?" he said, pressing the talk button.

"Hello, Bob," came a voice he hadn't heard in years.

Richter sat bolt upright in bed. "You're DEAD! YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD!" he screamed into his phone. Pressing the end button, he heaved the phone across the room.

A moment later, it rang again. Reluctantly, Bob got out of his bed, crept across the room, and picked the phone up. "Hello?"

"That was rude, Bob. Screaming at me and then hanging up."

"I read the report. NSA officially listed you as deader than a tree."

"Well, I'm not," the voice replied testily. "And guess what, Bob? It's time to start the game again."

"No WAY," Richter replied. "I barely escaped when that jackass Bartowski ripped Fulcrum open and spread us out for the whole country to see."

"Well, good news, Bob. That's who we're going for!"

"Look, I can't."

"Yes you can, Bob."

"And if I don't?"

"Then I will kill you. I will rape your wife and your sixteen year old daughter and then kill them. I will burn your house to the ground with you in it. I will smear your name from one side of this continent to the other."

"Like you even know where I live."

"I'm standing outside your house, Bob."

* * *

**1:32 P.M.**

**Cedars-Sinai Hospital**

**Beverly Hills, California**

Chuck wheeled Kaylee out the front door of Cedars-Sinai. The right side of her body was sore, and she would have to have bandaging on her upper right arm for at least a month, but she was intact and in good health.

"Where's little Chuck at?" she had asked when Chuck entered her room.

"I asked him if he wanted to go, but he decided he wanted to go to Disneyland with his cousins, Michael and Jordan," Chuck replied.

"Disneyland?"

"It's an amusement park," Chuck said. "All kinds of crazy rides and… well, stuff. I'll take you there at some point."

As Chuck wheeled her outside into the sunlight, Kaylee slipped on a pair of sunglasses to protect her still-sensitive right eye. Peering across the parking lot, she pointed at the hundred foot monolith on the other side of San Vicente Blvd.

"What is that thing?" she asked.

"That's the Beverly Center," Chuck replied. "It's a shopping mall. Two department stores and about 150 other smaller stores."

"Oh my God," Kaylee said with glee, turning to Chuck. "Can we go?"

"Uh, sure, we can go there… there's a bunch of other malls we can go to, too."

"No, I mean right now!" Kaylee responded.

"Seriously?"

"Dead serious," Kaylee shot back. "I haven't been shopping… God, in forever."

"Well, let's get to the car first, shall we?"

When they reached Chuck's Aston Martin, Kaylee's eyes went wide again. "Wow, that is a fancy set of wheels you got there, Mr. Bartowski!"

Then she examined it more closely. "And it's red… with white and silver trim… Chuck, you painted that car in the same colors as your Herder."

"That's right, Kaylee," Chuck said with a little bit of nerdish pride. "I own the Nerd Herd now."

Then he had a thought. "Speaking of which, how is the Herder?"

"Still running," Kaylee replied. "I keep fixing her up, and she's got over 400,000 miles on her now. I don't know if she survived the crash, though."

Then she paused. "You're just trying to distract me from wanting to go shopping, aren't you?"

"Blast!" Chuck intoned, doing his best imitation of an evil villain. "You have foiled my evil plan."

"I know you too well, Charles Bartowski!" Kaylee replied impishly.

"So, you want to try standing up?" Chuck asked.

"Alright, here goes nothing."

The Cedars-Sinai attendant who had silently accompanied them held the handles of the wheelchair. Kaylee stood up slowly, and when she had reached a fully standing position, thrust her good arm up in victory.

Then her eyes went wide, and her face pale. She wobbled a bit, and threw her arms out in front of her to try to stabilize herself. Chuck quickly reached out and grabbed her. "Gotcha," he said, catching her before she could fall.

He realized at that point just what a position he was in. He was holding Kaylee **very** close to himself, she had her arms around his neck, and their faces were just inches apart. It oddly felt just like the first time he'd caught her – and he'd even said "Gotcha," then, too. He looked into her eyes, and she looked back into his, and then –

"Have a good day," said the Cedars-Sinai attendant as he wheeled the chair away. That broke the mood, and Chuck helped Kaylee back to a standing position.

He helped her into the Aston Martin, and then got in on his side. It took only a few minutes to drive across the street to the Beverly Center to the valet.

Kaylee was still a little weak on her feet, so Chuck helped her up the pathway from the valet to the elevator into the mall. They were the only two in the elevator, and as the doors shut, a disembodied voice said, "Chuck Bartowski and Kaylee Frye, welcome to the Beverly Center, where it's all about you."

Kaylee's eyes went wide. "How'd it do that?" she asked. "How'd it know who I am?"

"Personal identification microchips in your I.D. card," Chuck said. "Everybody has them, and they can be read by any approved device."

"But how did it know who **I** am?" Kaylee insisted. "I'm not from this time!"

"The CIA took care of it, believe me," Chuck said. "Check your wallet."

Kaylee opened her purse, pulled out her wallet – and there was a California driver's license. She looked at it in disbelief. "That's the best picture of me I've ever seen on an I.D. – and what's my address? It says I live on Paseo del Mar, in Palos Verdes Peninsula, California. Where's that?"

"Uh… that's my address," Chuck said.

"Oh."

There was a moment of awkward silence, which was thankfully broken by the elevator doors opening on the seventh floor. Kaylee stepped out, and when she looked around at the mall, she looked like a kid on Christmas.

"Oh my God," she breathed. "Oh my God, it's a real Louis Vuitton store!"

Chuck shook his head. "Five hundred years of difference and she still spots Louis Vuitton first," he muttered with a chuckle.

Kaylee didn't hear him. She had turned and seen Victoria's Secret. "That is some FANCY underwear," she said, making a bee line for what wasn't QUITE Chuck's least favorite store in the world, but was close.

As she was about to enter the underwear store of doom, she stopped and turned to Chuck. "Wait… I don't have any money," she said.

Taking a deep breath, Chuck reached in his pocket. Opening his wallet, he removed his American Express Black card. Showing it to Kaylee, he said, "Courtesy of the United States government, I have no credit limit. And courtesy of the United States government… well, get whatever you want."

When they finally pulled out of the Beverly Center onto La Cienega Blvd. four hours later, Chuck muttered, "Sarah's gonna have my head."

Several hundred dollars at Victoria's Secret. Two thousand at Louis Vuitton. Another few hundred at Guess. Nearly five thousand at Bloomingdale's. Nearly a thousand at Nine West. Another thousand at Gucci. Five hundred at Forever 21. Two hundred at Bath & Body Works. "For lotion?" Chuck had asked, incredulously.

All this sat in the back of the Aston Martin, and one very tired but very happy time-traveling space mechanic had fallen asleep in the shotgun seat of Chuck's car. As he headed south on La Cienega, he stole a look at her.

She looked almost the same as he remembered her. A little older, perhaps, but he'd still peg her under thirty if he saw her out and about.

Chuck, though, looked almost ten years older than her. In reality, he was only three years older – a concept which he was still having a hard time dealing with, given that they'd been the same age when last he saw her – but the strains of being a program director for the CIA had made much of his hair go gray by his 35th birthday. Worry lines marred his forehead, and he had very noticeable crow's feet by his eyes.

Anna Grimes had suggested on more than one occasion that he try Botox. "After all, this is Los Angeles," she had said. However, Chuck just couldn't get behind the idea of having botulin toxin injected into his face. It just rubbed him the wrong way.

Chuck was quiet for the whole drive home, waking Kaylee only when they reached the mansion. As she looked out from bleary eyes, she saw the house, and said, "Wow, is this where you live?"

"I actually live out back," Chuck replied. "This is my sister's house. Well, it's mine, but she lives here."

As Chuck helped her inside, Devin came into the front room. "Howdy, Chuckster," he said. "And you must be Kaylee!"

"That's me," she said with a sleepy smile.

"Pleased to meet you," Devin said. "I'm Devin, Chuck's brother-in-law. Sometimes people call me Captain Awesome, though."

"Speaking of which," Chuck said, "could you do me an awesome favor? There's a truckload of shopping bags in the back of the DB7. Could you and Ellie bring those in?"

"No problem," Devin replied. "It was nice to meet you, Kaylee!"

"You too," she said.

By the time Chuck had gotten her into bed and back downstairs, Ellie and Devin had brought all of Kaylee's bags inside. "Jesus Christ," Ellie said, "you let her loose at the Beverly Center?"

"With my American Express Black, no less," Chuck replied ruefully. "Taxpayer dollars at work and all."

Ellie shook her head. Then, remembering something, she held a finger up in the air.

"You know how you've been drinking a lot of orange juice and apple juice at night, to replace your soda?" she asked.

"Yeah," Chuck replied.

"Stop. It causes too much production of stomach acid, and stomach pain can cause your blood pressure to rise. Grape juice or milk only after eight o'clock."

"Are you kidding?" Chuck asked.

Ellie was not kidding.

So, at 10:30, Chuck sat at his desk, working on a report, drinking a glass of grape juice. He was surprised to hear a knock on his front door.

He answered it – and it was Kaylee. "What are you doing up?" he asked. "You really should be in bed."

"You're not my mother," she replied, tiredly but firmly. "I wanted to talk to you."

"Okay," Chuck said. "What's up?"

Kaylee sat down on the couched, sighed, and seemed to deflate. "You know, it's been seven years since I saw you in person, but since little Chuck was born, it's like I see you every day. He's just like you – he looks like you, he talks like you, his mind picks up on everything – just like you. And then, I get thrown back here, and you're the first – well, the second person I see when I wake up.

"I was so happy to see you. As pathetic as it may seem, one of the first things that went through my head was, 'I wonder if he still feels the same way about me that I do about him.' But it seems like you've been… well, distant. That moment in the parking garage earlier – I almost expected you to kiss me. But then you pulled back."

With a sigh, Chuck closed his laptop and turned to face her. "A lot has happened in my life in the last ten years," he said. "I have far more responsibility now than I did then. I… well…"

He stopped. "Ummm… I had an affair with Sarah. It went on for about two years."

Kaylee's eyes opened a little wider, and for a moment, Chuck was afraid she was about to start crying. But, the moment passed, and he went on.

"We ended it because as good friends as we were, we just couldn't bring ourselves to be any more than that. And the thing is… for the last ten years, even when Sarah and I were together, there's always been a picture that I've had with me – a picture of you, in my wallet, and in my glovebox.

"Whenever something was going wrong at work, or when I was feeling sad, lonely, discouraged, I would take out that picture, think of you, and how happy, and energetic, and fun you always were. And it would always make me feel better.

"I don't think I ever stopped loving you, Kaylee," Chuck finished. "I just need some time to get used to it again, that's all."

"Okay," said Kaylee, and then she was quiet for a minute. When she spoke again, she said, "Well, I should let you go back to working then."

She stood up, and turned to head for the door, when Chuck called her back. "Come here… just for a minute," he said.

She met him halfway between them, and he wrapped her in a hug. "I told you a long time ago not to ever let me hurt you again," he said. "I don't intend to start trying now."

"I didn't think you would," she said. He could hear a smile in her voice. "Especially since I threatened to crush your balls with a pair of pliers. That threat still stands, mister."

He pulled back, a smile on his face, and looked her in the eyes. "Oh, come on, you wouldn't do that to me."

"That's what you think," she replied, smiling impishly.

Chuck looked at her for a very long moment, and then…

"Oh, the hell with it," he said, and kissed her.


	6. Abducted

**8:02 A.M.**

**July 12****th****, 2008**

**Rancho Palos Verdes, California**

In his dreams, Chuck was playing Super Mario Brothers. On an old, old Super Nintendo. And it was awesome.

Except… the theme kept playing the same passage of music over and over. Chuck cocked his head, and then realized that he was asleep, and that that was his phone ringing.

Swimming up out of sleep, Chuck opened his eyes and grabbed his phone. "Yallo?"

At the sound of his voice, a head popped up next to him. Kaylee.

"Chuck, it's Morgan."

"Hey, what's up, buddy?"

Kaylee stretched a little, then pushed herself up with her good arm – her left arm, careful to keep from straining her right arm. As she did so, the blanket covering both her and Chuck slid downward. _We seem to be naked_, Chuck thought.

"There's a problem," Morgan replied.

"What kind of problem?" Chuck asked, his brow furrowing. And then, with no warning, Kaylee started doing something with her left hand that made it **very** difficult for Chuck to concentrate.

Chuck looked at her with a "what the hell are you doing" look, and she just smiled innocently back at him.

"You're about to have company," Morgan replied.

"Ah, what do you mean? When?"

"I mean, Jayne Cobb is going to walk in your door in about five seconds."

"Oh shit."

And the door burst open. "Good morning sunshine!" Jayne boomed.

Kaylee screamed and dived under the covers. Chuck's eyes went wide, and Jayne realized what was going on.

"Uhhh… I'll… I'll just be out here," he stammered.

The door slammed shut. Chuck lifted the covers and peered in at Kaylee. "Didn't you people ever knock onboard _Serenity_?" he asked indignantly.

"I always locked my door," she replied. "That never once happened to me."

"What's going on, Jayne?" they could hear Mal ask through the door.

"Uh, nothing, Captain, uh, technical difficulties."

Then they heard Zoe's voice. "You know, I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that this lacy pink thong does not belong to Chuck Bartowski."

"Lacy pink what?!" Mal shouted.

"Oh, crap," Chuck said matter-of-factly. "Your clothes are scattered all over my living room."

"So are yours," Kaylee replied with a giggle. "We were kind of aggressive in tearing them off of each other."

"Yeah," said Chuck, "but I have more clothes in here. You don't."

About two minutes later, the bedroom door opened. Chuck appeared, looking mostly normal in an Atari t-shirt and jeans. Kaylee, on the other hand, emerged wearing one of his dress shirts and a pair of his boxers.

Nobody spoke. Jayne, Mal, Zoe, River, and Simon all looked at them with looks ranging from "Die Chuck!" to "I'll be in my bunk."

Morgan spoke up. "So… good morning, Chuck?"

"Morning, Morgan," Chuck replied, an edge in his voice. "Why is there a crew of space pirates in my living room?"

"They insisted on coming to see you," Morgan said weakly.

"Morgan," Chuck started, "you have the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department at your disposal, and yet somehow, a crew of banged up space crooks overrode you?"

"Actually, a CIA Deputy Director did," came Sarah's voice as she walked in the front door. "I needed to come down here and talk to you, and they came along. Hi, Kaylee."

"Hi, Sarah," Kaylee said softly, trying to hide behind Chuck.

"Would it be safe to assume that she's responsible for the $11,000 total charge we got from the Beverly Center yesterday?" Sarah asked Chuck.

"Come on," Chuck said. "That's what the card is for. If you want me to pay –"

Sarah cut him off. "You took her to the Beverly Center and she only spent $11,000? What the hell is wrong with you?"

Chuck's mouth kept moving, but no words came out. Finally, he managed to spit out, "What?"

"Kaylee, you clearly need some girls to take you shopping," Sarah said, turning her attention away from Chuck. "How would you feel about coming with me, Zoe, River, and Chuck's sister to Rodeo Drive?"

"I have no idea what that is, but it sounds fancy," Kaylee breathed.

"Wait a second," Chuck interrupted. "She just spent $11,000 at the Beverly Center yesterday, and you're going to take her to Rodeo Drive?"

"Is that a problem, Director Bartowski?" Sarah asked pointedly.

"Uh, nope."

"Good," Sarah stated. "Kaylee, you might want to… um… put more clothes on. We'll leave the boys to have fun together."

"What the hell does that mean?" asked Chuck.

"Whatever it means is not my problem," Sarah said. "Don't get in any trouble."

Sarah turned and swept back out the door, Zoe and River in her wake.

"Well…" Kaylee stopped for a moment. Then, standing on her tiptoes, she kissed Chuck. "Bye!"

She strode out the door, retrieving her clothes from a very confused looking Simon as she went.

There was an awkward silence as Chuck stood facing Morgan, Mal, Jayne, and Simon. "So," he said.

"So," Mal replied. "That was an… interesting… ensemble Kaylee was wearing."

"Yep," Chuck said.

"I also found it interesting that her clothes were all over your living room."

Chuck rolled his eyes. "Oh, give me a break. I'd say it's pretty apparent that this was not the first time we'd slept together."

"Yeah, but here's the thing," said Mal, slowly walking up to Chuck until he was just a few inches away from him. "She's been around you for a week after being away from you for seven years. She just got out of the hospital yesterday. And somehow, she's already in your bed."

Mal kept his voice very quiet through all of that, but there was a dangerous glint in his eyes.

Chuck backed up a little, lifting his hands as if he were trying to create a barrier. "Look, Mal, she's a big girl. She can take care of herself. There's a standing threat that she'll crush my balls with a pliers if I ever hurt her."

"A threat that I'm assuming was made after you kicked her to the curb on Persephone."

"That was ten years ago, Mal," Chuck replied in exasperation.

"Seven."

"WHATEVER," Chuck grated. "Being protective of Kaylee when she was in her early 20's is one thing. But she's 33, Mal. I think she can handle herself."

"Are you telling me how to treat my crew?" Mal asked, cocking his head in a curious fashion.

"Oh, Jesus H. Christ," Chuck snapped. "This is ridiculous."

Mal stared at him for a moment longer – and then burst out laughing. "Had you goin' there, didn't I?"

Chuck just looked back at him. "What the hell is wrong with you people!"

* * *

**9:15 A.M.**

**Marine Corps Air Station Yuma**

**Yuma, Arizona**

Bob Richter wasn't sure what the hell he was supposed to do. After the late night phone call, he had quietly taken vacation and made his way across the country to the armpit of the Southwest.

Now he stood on the tarmac at MCAS Yuma, waiting for the helicopter that was supposed to be landing. And there it was, right on schedule.

The jet black Sikorsky Blackhawk swooped in from the northwest. The venerable 60 series helicopter had replaced almost every utility helicopter in the US military, despite its many well-publicized crashes. And now, it was carrying a man who was supposed to be dead, from an organization that was supposed to be gone.

Richter steeled himself as the rotor spooled down and the door opened. Out stepped a man he hadn't seen in years… or at least, who he thought was a man he hadn't seen in years. Something about him didn't look quite right.

Bob looked carefully at Francis Xavier Mullins as he crossed the tarmac. Something about him looked… looked fake.

"Hello, Bob," Frank Mullins said. "How are you doing?"

His voice didn't sound quite right either. "Frank," Bob said, "what happened to you?"

Mullins didn't say anything. He just reached up to his head, placed his right hand on the center of his head, and his left just under his chin – and removed the entire right hand portion of his face, revealing metal underneath with what looked like a camera where his eye should've been.

Bob Richter's eyes went wide and his stomach turned over. "What… the… fuck."

Mullins smiled, and it looked grotesque with half of his face off. "Frank… please… put your face back on," Bob said.

"No problem, Bob," he replied. He slid the prosthetic face portion back on. "Now, as far as what happened to me, do you remember the mission almost eleven years ago to disappear Chuck Bartowski to a different time period?"

"Of course," Bob said. "I'm the one who got the device out of Area 51."

"Well, let's just say that Bryce Larkin managed to get his hands on the device after that," Mullins rasped, his voice making Bob wince. "And he got me in the back of his car when he utilized it."

"So…"

"So I got taken to the 26th century with Mr. Larkin," Mullins raged, his voice still quiet but his anger growing more and more evident. "He met up with Sarah Walker and John Casey, and they locked me up in their modified space shuttle. I tried to escape, and Sarah Walker shot me. Through the face.

"So that's why I look like this, Bob," he finished, a sneer crossing the organic part of his face. "Your DD(I) shot me in the face."

"Frank, calm down," Bob said.

"No, fuck you," Mullins shouted at him. "I got left for dead in the 26th century. I'm alive only because there are still Fulcrum elements around in the NSA 500 years from now!"

He took a deep breath, and composed himself. "I happened to meet a gentleman there who has a bone to pick with the crew of a certain spaceship that helped a certain walking Intersect get back to the 21st century. So, we worked together, knocked that ship back in time to now. It crashed outside of Los Angeles last week."

Bob's jaw dropped. "That was YOU?"

"Oh yeah," Mullins replied. "Me, and this gentleman."

A well-dressed black man stepped out of the helicopter. "Morning," he said, a calmness in his voice. "Nice to meet you, Agent Richter."

Richter didn't know what to do, so he tried just being polite. "And you, Mr…"

"Early," he replied. "Jubal Early."

* * *

**12:21 P.M.**

**Rodeo Dr. & Brighton Way**

**Beverly Hills, California**

"I feel a little guilty," Ellie commented. "It seems like we've collectively spent the gross domestic product of a small third world nation."

"Five women on Rodeo Drive, Ellie," Sarah replied. "Just this once, I am more than happy to live up to the stereotype."

Zoe, River, and Kaylee had all gone a little crazy. Sarah's Amex had gotten quite the workout. But it was okay.

The sound of a low-flying helicopter startled Sarah. She looked up to see a Blackhawk streak overhead at a very low altitude. "What the hell?" she said.

As she watched, it landed at the intersection of Little Santa Monica Blvd. She turned around to see another landing at the intersection of Brighton Way. "Oh my God," she breathed, her face going pale.

"Call: Langley," she instructed her Bluetooth.

The moment the phone was answered, she started talking. "This is Peregrine," she said. "We are condition black."

She hung up the phone, and the four members of her CIA protective detail came running out into the street. As they did so, men in unmarked riot gear jumped out of the helicopters – six from each.

They were all carrying strange looking guns, and as Sarah watched, they took down her protective detail – with electronic darts. "Tasers," she breathed involuntarily.

The people on Rodeo Drive started panicking. Screams and running people enveloped Sarah's perception, and she wasn't able to keep track of the men in riot gear, which gave them the immediate advantage.

Inside of a minute, the dozen men had encircled her, Ellie, Kaylee, Zoe, and River. Sarah's gun was out, pointed at nobody in particular, but up and cocked, ready to fire at a moment's notice.

"Forget it, Director," a vaguely mechanical yet vaguely familiar voice came from inside one of the helmets. "You'll never get out of here."

The speaker removed his helmet. Sarah recognized him immediately. "Mullins," she breathed.

Stepping up to him, she put her gun against his forehead. "I killed you once, I'm happy to do it ag-"

There was an electronic buzz, and Sarah collapsed to the street, a dart in her back. The man who had fired stepped up to the group, and removed his helmet.

"Hello, River," he said, his voice menacing.

River's eyes went wide at the sight of Jubal Early standing in front of her. She panicked, turned, and ran – and got about three steps before Early put an electronic dart into her back as well.

"You bastard!" Kaylee shouted, stepping forward and raising her hand to backhand Early across the face, but he just looked at her and shook his head.

"I wouldn't, Kaylee," he said softly. "I made you a promise last time I saw you. Do you remember that promise?"

Kaylee's eyes widened in fear, and she seemed to shrink as she stepped back, almost trying to conceal herself behind Zoe.

"Get them in the helicopters," Mullins ordered. "Kill anybody who tries to stop you."


	7. Chuck vs the Defibrillator

**10:02 P.M. (Eastern)**

**July 12****th****, 2018**

**office of Bryce Larkin**

**Deputy Director (Operations), Central Intelligence Agency**

**Langley, Virginia**

"I don't know where they are," Bryce admitted.

"How can you not know where they are?" came Chuck's voice from the other side of the country. "The CIA has technology that can track an ant in Australia!"

"Chuck, listen to me," Bryce said. "Whoever has them has erected some sort of electronic field around them that has blocked their ID transmitters. They could've gone any way after they landed in Redlands."

"That's great, Bryce, really it is," Chuck replied sarcastically. "How many billions of taxpayers dollars go into intelligence technology each year, and somebody is able to befuddle ALL of it with an electric generator."

"Well, guess what, being an ass about it isn't helping," Bryce snapped, his ire rising. "We're busting our asses out here trying to figure out what happened. What the hell are you doing? Sitting on your couch in your mansion by the sea?"

"If you really want to know, Morgan and I have been reviewing surveillance video from the shops on Rodeo Drive all afternoon, trying to figure out who the hell these people are," Chuck practically shouted into the phone. "And if you've got a problem with me, maybe we need to discuss this in person."

"Oh, you name the time and place," Bryce growled, rising to his feet. "I'll meet you there, Chuckles."

There was a brief scuffle in the background, and then John Casey's voice came on the phone. "Hey Beavis," he said, "you and Butthead aren't solving anything here. Why don't you try being civ –"

His voice cut off. "What is it?" Bryce asked.

"We may have a situation here."

* * *

**Ten hours earlier**

**9:07 A.M. (Pacific)**

**Rancho Palos Verdes, California**

The women had all left for their all-day shopping spree on Rodeo.

The kids had been herded off with Devin's mother for the day. She was somewhat surprised to see little Chuck. "And he is?" she asked.

"He's my son," Chuck said.

"Excuse me?" Devin's mother asked.

"He didn't know about me until a few days ago," little Chuck chimed in.

Devin's mother gave Chuck a dirty look and muttered something as she walked off that Chuck couldn't quite understand but thought sounded like _Goddamn CIA_.

And so, the guys were left at the mansion.

Chuck, Morgan, Jayne, Mal, Simon, and Devin all sat around the living room. "So," Chuck said.

"Yep," Mal said.

Then it was quiet again. It went on like this for nearly thirty minutes.

Finally, Morgan got up. "That's it," he said. "I can't take this anymore. It's time for some man stuff."

Jayne gave him a look. "The hell does that mean?"

"It means I'm going to go get _Rambo_ and put it on the TV," Morgan said.

An hour later, they all watched, captivated, as Sylvester Stallone single-handedly fought his way through the Vietnam jungle, in high definition, on Devin and Ellie's 120" flat panel television.

"That… that is incredible," Mal gasped as John Rambo blew away another bad guy with his gun. "I've never seen a screen with picture quality like that."

Chuck looked at him. "You're kidding," he said. "Five hundred years in the future and you guys don't have anything like this?"

"No," Mal said. "Well, we didn't on any of the Independent worlds, and we **sure** didn't on _Serenity_."

Then chatter ceased, and it was quiet until almost the end of the movie, when –

"Aw, what the hell, guys," they heard John Casey say behind them. "You went and watched _Rambo_ and didn't invite me?"

"Didn't know you wanted to watch it, Casey," Chuck replied. "Besides, you don't seem much one for male bonding."

"Hell, I would've brought the beer, Chuck."

"Casey. It's eleven o'clock in the morning. Don't you think that's a little early for beer?" Chuck asked.

"Nah," Casey said. "Never too early for beer."

"Wouldn't have mattered anyway," Devin stated, leaning forward. "Ellie's banned alcohol from passing Chuck's lips."

"What?" Casey asked. "Are you kidding?"

"I apparently have high blood pressure," Chuck said disgustedly. "I can't have caffeine, can't have any soda, can't have alcohol, can't even have apple juice or orange juice after a certain time of night, because it apparently increases acid production in my stomach, which in turn causes me stomach pain, which in turn causes my blood pressure to rise."

"That all sounds about right," Simon said.

Chuck turned, looked at Simon, and shook his head. "Simon," he replied, "I have a sister who is a doctor, and a brother-in-law who is a doctor. The last thing I need is a time-traveling space pirate telling me about my high blood pressure as well."

"That's Dr. Space Pirate to you," Simon snarked.

"Well… anybody up for a game of basketball?" Casey asked. There was a full court behind the house.

"Can't," Devin said. "Michael tossed the last basketball over the fence and into the ocean a week ago. It's probably somewhere in Hawaii by now."

The credits for _Rambo_rolled as they talked. "So what else is there to do, then?" Casey wanted to know.

Morgan stood up in front of the television. "How good are you guys with guns?"

And so it was that ten minutes later, all seven men had on virtual reality helmets and gloves, hooked into Devin's X-Box. Halo 4 was the game of the hour, and though Mal and Jayne caught on quickly, Simon was really struggling with the game. Everybody else was making up for him, though, and they were kicking ass and taking names, when the game went dark.

"Incoming emergency call," was the message that popped on the screen. Chuck ripped his helmet off, and everybody else slowly followed suit.

"Answer," Chuck said.

The image of Bryce Larkin popped onto the screen. "Bryce, what's go-"

"Peregrine is Condition Black," Bryce said. "I need you in a bunker. Right now."

"What?!" Chuck replied.

"GO!"

"Let's go!" Casey shouted. "Everybody follow me!"

Barging into the kitchen, he opened the door to the cellar. Chuck brought up the rear as the procession filed down the stairs.

Casey entered a seven digit code on a keypad next to a reinforced door in the wall. It swung open to reveal a fairly high-tech bunker. Supposedly, it was breach-proof, bomb-proof, gas-proof, and nuclear hardened. "Everybody in!"

Chuck tried to fire up the computer system. It came up – and then went right back down. "Oh, no, no, no," he said. "Not now!"

He tried unsuccessfully several more times. "Shit!"

Crawling underneath a console, he pulled off a panel and ripped two very thick cables from their sockets. Looking at them, he closed his eyes and breathed, "God help me."

He jammed the two cables together, there was a loud pop – and the computer system started to spool up.

Chuck crawled out from under the console with his hair standing on end. "Just a note," he said, "don't do that."

He collapsed into a chair. "Chuck? You alright?" Devin asked.

Chuck just blew out his breath and shook his head.

Devin took Chuck's pulse quickly, then checked it again at his carotid artery. "Okay, crap," he said. "Morgan, open up that first aid kit over there, get me two aspirin."

"Aspirin?" Simon said. "Is he having a cardiac episode?"

"Pretty damn close," Devin replied. "His heart is racing, and we need to get it calmed down."

Chuck dry swallowed the two aspirin. "I want you to just sit there," Devin said. "Don't move. Don't talk, don't do anything, until your heart rate is back down to normal."

The seven men sat in the bunker for fifty minutes, Chuck doing nothing but taking regular deep breaths, before something happened. At 1:22 P.M., the phone rang.

Casey picked it up. "This is Casey. Yeah."

He pushed a button, and set the cradle down. "Okay, so here's the situation," Bryce's voice poured into the room.

"At 12:25 P.M. Pacific time, two Blackhawk helicopters landed at either end of the Rodeo Drive shopping district. Men dressed in unmarked riot gear and armed with TASERs exited the helicopters.

"Sarah called in a Condition Black almost immediately. However, her protective detail was taken out within seconds, and the panic and confusion caused in the general public led to the capture of Sarah, Ellie, Zoe, Kaylee, and River within two minutes.

"They were loaded onto the helicopters, which then took off and flew low over the city, using ground clutter to keep radar from tracking them.

"We were finally able to get satellite imagery on them, and we tracked the two helicopters to Redlands Municipal Airport in the Inland Empire," he reported. "They entered a hangar. We haven't observed anybody come out."

"So, you've got a team ready to go in there, right?" Chuck asked, the first words he'd spoken in nearly an hour.

"No," Bryce replied. "San Bernardino Sheriff's SWAT went in. The hangar was completely empty except for the two Blackhawks."

"That's impossible," Morgan replied. "They couldn't have just disappeared."

"That's all I know right now," Bryce said. "Stay in the bunker. I'll keep you posted."

* * *

**7:02 P.M. (Pacific)**

"Here's the deal, Chuck," Bryce said. "We don't know where they are. I don't know where they are."

"How can you not know where they are?" Chuck exclaimed, pacing the room as Devin and Simon watched him worriedly. "The CIA has technology that can track an ant in Australia!"

"Chuck listen to me," Bryce replied. "Whoever has them has erected some sort of electronic field around them that has blocked their ID transmitters. They could've gone any way after they landed in Redlands."

"That's great, Bryce, really it is," Chuck said with a sarcastic tone, the color rising in his face. "How many billions of taxpayers dollars go into intelligence technology each year, and somebody is able to befuddle ALL of it with an electric generator."

"Well, guess what, being an ass about it isn't helping," Bryce snapped back. "We're busting our asses out here trying to figure out what happened. What the hell are you doing? Sitting on your couch in your mansion by the sea?"

"If you really want to know, Morgan and I have been reviewing surveillance video from the shops on Rodeo Drive all afternoon, trying to figure out who the hell these people are," Chuck practically shouted at his phone. "And if you've got a problem with me, maybe we need to discuss this in person."

"Oh, you name the time and place," Chuck heard Bryce growl. "I'll meet you there, Chuckles."

At that moment, Casey grabbed Chuck by the scruff of his neck, removed the phone from his hand, and forcibly planted Chuck into a chair. "Hey Beavis," he said, "you and Butthead aren't solving anything here. Why don't you try being civ –"

Casey looked at Chuck. Chuck's face was bright red, and he looked like he was having trouble breathing. His eyes were wide with fear, and he had a white-knuckle grip on the armrests of his chair.

"We may have a situation here," Casey said, hanging up the phone.

Devin and Simon practically crashed into the wall getting to Chuck. "I think he's going into cardiac arrest," Devin said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Simon, get the first aid kit."

"Def… def… defi…" Chuck gasped.

"Defibrillator?" Devin asked anxiously.

Chuck nodded, and weakly lifted his right arm, pointing to the cabinet by the door.

Simon returned to Chuck's side with the first aid kit as Mal crossed to the cabinet to retrieve the defibrillator. He put two more aspirin into Chuck's mouth, and Chuck struggled to swallow them.

Mal set the defibrillator down by Devin's side, and he opened it up. Hitting the switch, he said, "Charging 20. Clear?"

Simon backed away from Chuck, and just as Devin was about to place the tiny paddles to Chuck's chest, Morgan started yelling. "Hey hey hey! You can't shock him while his heart's still beating, can you?!"

Devin ignored him and pressed the paddles to Chuck's heart. There was a zap, and Chuck went still. His breathing returned to if not a normal rate, then a less frantic one. Very slowly, his face began to return to its normal color.

"Defib's not for a stopped heart, Morgan," Devin explained as he put the defibrillator back in its case. "It's for a heart that's beating irregularly. The electricity momentarily stops the heart, causing the nervous function in the cardiac muscles to reset and go back to a normal rhythm."

"Oh," Morgan said quietly. "I never knew that."

"Yeah, well, we need to get Chuck to a hospital, like post fucking haste, or his life is going to be anything but awesome," Devin replied.

Everybody turned to look at Casey. "Wonderful," he breathed.

Picking up the phone, Casey dialed Bryce. "Yeah, listen, we need to get Chuck to a hospital," he said.

"He's had a heart attack."


	8. A Signal in the Night

**9:16 P.M. PDT  
**

**July 12****th****, 2018**

**San Pedro Peninsula Hospital**

**San Pedro, California**

Two hours earlier, an ambulance had roared up to the front of the Bartowski property in Rancho Palos Verdes. Casey and Mal had done a sweep of the property and determined it was secure.

Over Chuck's weak protests, he was loaded onto a stretcher and placed in the back of the ambulance. Devin insisted on riding along with him. Casey, Morgan, Jayne, Mal, and Simon loaded into Casey's Suburban to follow the ambulance.

Devin had called Don Russell to meet him at Peninsula Hospital. "Getting to a hospital was a good idea as far as precautionary measures go," Dr. Russell said, "but really, he'll be fine.

"Are you sure about that?" Devin asked.

"Devin," Dr. Russell replied patiently, "you're a neurologist. I'm a cardiologist. Trust me. It was a minor heart attack, and you caught it practically before it began. There's almost no damage to the cardiac muscle. I think Chuck should stay overnight for observation, but I'm going to leave that decision up to him."

And so a few minutes later, Devin was in Chuck's room, giving him the lowdown on the situation. Devin had kicked everybody else out when he came into the room.

"So, Dr. Russell says you can go home, but I'd really be more comfortable if you spent the night in the hospital."

"Devin," Chuck said, "how can I lie here in the hospital when Ellie and Kaylee and Sarah and River and Zoe are all out there, somewhere, in God knows what danger? How can I just stay here?"

Devin cast his eyes to the floor. When he looked back up, a day's worth of exhaustion and anxiety had drawn itself on his face. "Chuck," he replied, "believe me when I say that I can't stand not knowing where Ellie is, and that the only thing I know is that she's been kidnapped."

He stopped and took a deep breath, then blew it out again in frustration. "But there's nothing I can do about it right now. As far as I can tell, there's nothing you can do about it either, and you're not going to help them any by stirring yourself into another heart attack."

"Devin…"

"Chuck," Devin said, his voice rising, "Dr. Russell is the attending physician here, but if I have to, I will get myself placed on file as the physician of record, and so help me, I will have you restrained and handcuffed to that bed if I have to. Your sister will kill me if I let you do anything to yourself."

Chuck, realizing he was not going to win this argument, put his hands up in defeat. "Okay, okay, I'll stay. Just as long as I can get up to go use the bathroom when I need to."

"Don't worry. No bedpan for the Chuckster."

* * *

**Time Unknown**

**Location Unknown**

After the five women had been handcuffed and herded into the helicopter parked on Little Santa Monica Blvd., Sarah (still unconscious) and Ellie had been blindfolded. Kaylee, Zoe, and River, however, were not.

"Why did you blindfold them, and not us?" Zoe asked Mullins.

"Because you don't have a clue where we're going," Mullins replied with an unpleasant tone. "They both live in Los Angeles and could easily figure it out.

"Now," he continued, "ordinarily, I would take away all your IDs, your phones, what have you. However, God knows what booby traps the CIA might have set up, so I'm just going to activate this."

He pulled out a device no larger than a small cell phone, and pressed a button on it.

"Nothing happened," Kaylee said quietly, still terrified at Jubal Early's threat to follow through on the promise he had made more than eight years prior.

"Nothing visible," Mullins corrected her. "But I just activated an electromagnetic field that blocks the signals from your phones and the ident chips in your ID cards. Nobody will be able to track you that way."

After about two hours of flying very low – so low at times that it looked like they were going to crash into freeway ramps – the helicopters swooped in for a landing at a small airport out in the middle of agricultural fields. Sarah had woken up twice during the trip and been zapped with a stun gun both times for her troubles.

"You are going to cause permanent damage to her nervous system if you keep doing that," Ellie had said angrily after hearing the stun gun for the second time.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Mullins replied. "Did I not mention that Director Walker here shot me in the FACE?! You'll forgive me if I could give a shit about her nervous system."

The helicopters had taxied into a hangar. From there, the five were transferred into a large yellow truck with no windows. Kaylee could see a silhouette on the side of something that looked like it used to say "Ryder." She wanted to ask what that was, but kept her mouth shut out of fear.

After the rear door of the truck was closed, it began to feel like it was descending. About two minutes later, the engine of the truck started, and they pulled forward.

They drove for what felt like forever without stopping. When they finally stopped, Sarah had positioned herself by the back door to attack whoever opened it – and was preemptively shot with a TASER, yet again, when the door opened.

"If you have to go to the bathroom, you will go now," Mullins said, a real gun in his hands rather than a TASER. "Although it looks like Director Walker doesn't need to anymore."

"Exactly how are we supposed to accomplish this?" Zoe asked.

"We pull down your drawers. You squat. You do your thing. We pull your drawers back up," Mullins said, with an almost bored tone.

Kaylee had the unfortunate experience of making eye contact with Early at just that moment. "Yeah, I don't need to go," she said, hurriedly heading back for the truck. The other three women agreed.

"Suit yourself," Mullins called to their backs.

After being closed back up in the truck, they drove for quite a while longer. When they stopped, the door was opened again, and Sarah was shot with the TASER once more. "You're a monster, you know that?" Zoe asked Mullins angrily.

"You have no idea, lady."

They were in a parking structure of some sort. Mullins, Early, and the third man, who Kaylee had heard Mullins call "Richter", herded them over to a bank of elevators. They boarded one, and Richter pressed the button for the 33rd floor.

As the elevator ascended, Kaylee nervously dug her fingers into the rear pockets of her jeans – and felt something in the right pocket.

Her California ID card.

She had been keeping it in her back pocket in case she needed ID, so that she wouldn't have to dig around in her purse for it every time she needed it. And now, it might just be the answer to prayer.

Almost imperceptibly, she checked to her right and her left, making sure that neither Richter or especially Early was watching her. Agonizingly slowly, she used the first two fingers of her left hand to slip the ID out. As it came out of her pocket, she let go of it, letting it slide down the back of her leg to the floor. Ever so slightly lifting her right foot, she let the ID fall to the floor, and then put her foot back on top of it.

When the elevator doors opened, they were ushered out into a set of offices. Kaylee held her breath as they exited the elevator, but neither of the men who had been standing next to her seemed to notice the ID card lying face down on the floor of the elevator.

_Please, God, please let this work_, she prayed to a God she barely believed in.

* * *

**11:31 P.M. PDT  
**

**San Pedro Peninsula Hospital**

Morgan sat alone in the lobby of the hospital, staring blankly at his Palm Pilot. He felt incredibly lost in this situation. Of all the men who had been at Chuck's place earlier in the day, he was the only one who didn't have a very personal connection with any of the kidnapped women. Oh, sure, he had had a crush on Ellie back in the day, but that was it.

And he didn't feel like there was anything he could contribute to the situation. He was just a GSA lackey, assigned to help Chuck oversee Nerd Herd/Omaha operations for the greater Los Angeles area. He felt utterly useless.

So Morgan sat there, giving a half-hearted attempt to a game of Solitaire, when a small red box began flashing in the upper left hand corner of the Palm screen. "No way," he said in disbelief.

He tapped the box with the stylus, and the ident-tracking application popped up. "No WAY," he said again. Looking up, he scanned the lobby. Where the hell was everybody?

Morgan popped out of his chair and sprinted for the cafeteria. Only one person was in there – but it was just the person he needed. John Casey had fallen asleep on a table.

"Casey!" Morgan shouted, racing across to him. "Casey!" He shook his shoulder.

"Huh? Mom?" Casey slurred, coming awake. Then he looked up. "Morgan? What the hell?"

Morgan didn't say anything, just put the Palm on the table in front of Casey. Casey went from practically asleep to wide awake in less than a second. "Christ," he uttered.

Standing up, he strode rapidly out of the cafeteria. Morgan grabbed his Palm and ran after Casey, struggling to keep up with the much taller man.

A moment later, Casey swept down the hallway toward Chuck's room. "Wake up, wake up!" he called, pulling Mal, Simon, and Jayne, all asleep in the hallway, out of their slumber.

Turning to the left, he barged into Chuck's room. Chuck was awake, watching the _Tonight Show_; Devin had fallen asleep. "Wake up, Doc!" Casey said.

Devin's eyes popped open, and Chuck hit the mute button on the remote control. "What's going on?" he asked, as the three _Serenity_ crew piled into the room.

"Five minutes ago, we got a positive track on Kaylee Frye's ID," Morgan reported. "It just popped up on my Palm Pilot. It came out of nowhere."

In an instant, Chuck was out of his bed. "Pardon my nakedness," he cracked, stripping off the hospital gown and grabbing the pair of jeans that was on the chair next to his bed.

"Chuck," Devin warned.

"Shut up, Devin," Chuck replied. "What's the location, Morgan?"

"Chase Bank Tower," Morgan said. "201 North Central Avenue. In Phoenix."

Casey, Devin, and Chuck all just looked at Morgan. "Phoenix?"

Morgan nodded. "As in Arizona."

A determined look set in on Chuck's face. "Let's go to Arizona."

* * *

**11:57 P.M. MST  
**

**33****rd**** Floor, Chase Tower**

**Phoenix, Arizona**

The five women had been tied to chairs facing a wall. Kaylee was tied up next to Sarah, and she sensed that Sarah was beginning to stir.

"Sarah," Kaylee whispered. "Sarah, if you're awake, nod your head a little."

Almost imperceptibly, Sarah's head moved forward and then back.

"I think I may have been able to let your people know where we are," Kaylee whispered. "I had my ident card in my back pocket, and I was able to slip it out and drop it on the floor of the elevator."

A grim smile grew on Sarah's face. "Good job," she whispered back, her speech slightly slurred. "We'll make an agent of you yet."


	9. Captivity

_So I realized as I wrote this chapter that this story has gotten really, incredibly dark. I did not intend it to go that way - I intended it to be fairly light and fluffy, like _Chuck vs. the Future _was. However, this is just the way it has come out. I hope you still enjoy the story._**  
**

* * *

******2:18 A.M. MST**

******July 13****th****, 2018**

******33****rd**** Floor, Chase Tower**

******Phoenix, Arizona**

Sarah was awake. She had been awake for just over two hours – the longest period of time she had been awake without being pumped full of electricity since just after noon the prior day.

Unexpectedly, her blindfold was ripped off. Her eyes, not having seen light for fourteen hours, took a moment to adjust to even the dim light of the office she was in.

Then she felt her chair tip backward, and there was a moment of terror as she thought she was going to be dropped on the floor. Then she realized she was being dragged somewhere.

Frank Mullins dragged Sarah's chair a few feet, and then set it upright, facing the other four women. "Hello, Director Walker," he spat, stepping around her to stand in front of her. "How are you doing?"

Sarah tried to spit at him, but her mouth wasn't working quite properly, and she ended up simply drooling down her chin. She had to satisfy herself with staring death at Mullins.

"Oh, my, not the look of death," he mocked her. "Heaven forbid."

With no warning, he backhanded the right side of her face as hard as he could. Sarah started moving her head to the left as he swung, though, so the majority of the impact was lost. She still tasted blood in her mouth.

"Director Walker," he said viciously, "you are going to tell me something."

"Like hell," she tried to say. It ended up coming out more like, "Liii heh."

"What was that, Director Walker? 'Like hell'? Oh, wrong answer."

He swung at her again, this time from the other direction, and this time, instead of moving her head, she turned to face his hand head on, sinking her teeth in as hard as she could the instant his hand made contact with her mouth.

Mullins howled in agony and tore his hand from her mouth, collapsing to the floor. After a moment, he got to his knees, a fiery rage burning in his eyes. "Well, Director Walker, you just signed your death warrant," he growled. "But before you die, you're going to tell me the name and location of every single agent of the Omaha Project."

Sarah's eyebrows went up. Speaking very carefully so that she could make herself understood, she said, "Would… that… be… before… or… after… you… suck… that… guy's… dick?"

Mullins, rising to his feet, cocked his head and gave Sarah a curious look. "Not quite that," he said. "However, if two hours from now, you haven't started talking, we're going to have to do some pretty vicious stuff to your friends here."

"We'll start with Chuck's sister… then move on to the courageous first mate of the_Serenity_… then we'll take care of the freak… and last, but not least, Mr. Early has something very special set aside for little Miss Kaylee Frye."

Sarah watched Kaylee's eyes go wide. "No…" Kaylee whispered. "Please… no…"

"What… do… you… plan… on… doing… you… sadistic… fuck?"

Mullins got as close to Sarah's face as he could. "Ever heard of a Reaver, Director Walker?" he asked her in a low growl.

Zoe and River gasped. Kaylee started crying. "Ask them what Reavers are, Director Walker," Mullins said. "Because we're going to make them look like preschoolers."

With that, Mullins reached behind Sarah's ear. She gasped involuntarily as something touched the back of it. "Oh, don't worry, Director," he said, "we're not going to hurt you yet. You're FAR too valuable. I'm just putting a Bluetooth on your ear. That way, when you're ready to talk, you can just say my name, and I'll come a-runnin'!"

Mullins and Early headed for a door off to the side, followed by a very pale Bob Richter. "We'll just be right next door," Mullins stated. "Don't forget… two hours. Then it's the end of the world."

* * *

******4:01 A.M. MST**

******Sky Harbor International Airport**

******Phoenix, Arizona**

The jet-black Gulfstream V taxied off of Runway 26 well in excess of the posted speed limit of 30 miles per hour. Blazing up to the Lincoln Executive Terminal, it jolted to a halt a scant ten feet from the Suburban waiting for its passengers.

A stairway was rolled up to the door, and as soon as it was there, the hatch popped open and seven men dressed in riot gear poured out. Chuck, Casey, Morgan, Devin, Mal, and Jayne were all heavily armed. Simon had two handguns and was hoping to not have to use them.

Not a word was spoken as the men piled into the Suburban. The Omaha Project officer from Phoenix was at the wheel. He didn't speak either – just pulled off the tarmac onto deserted Sky Harbor Blvd., headed west.

Twelve minutes later, the Suburban screeched to a halt in the parking garage of the Chase Tower. "The ID signal's coming from over here," Morgan said, the first words spoken by any of them in over an hour. Morgan led them to a bank of elevators. Casey hit the "up" button –

And the elevator doors opened, revealing Kaylee Frye's ID card lying on the floor. Chuck entered the elevator and picked it up. He sighed, a deep sigh of desperation. "Let's see if we can figure out where they are," he said resignedly.

The seven piled into the elevator and rose to the lobby. Casey and Chuck exited the elevator. "Hold the elevator right there," Casey instructed as they walked out. Devin placed his hand on the "door open" button and held it.

Casey and Chuck approached the security desk, guns out. When the security guard looked up, his eyes widened. Casey immediately held up his ID. "Federal agents," he said. "I need to see a list of all building tenants."

"Excuse me?" the security guard said. "I don't know if I can –"

He suddenly found himself face to face with the business end of a Heckler & Koch MP10 machine pistol. "Here ya go," he gulped, picking a sheet of paper up off his desk and handing it to Casey.

"Chuck?" Casey asked simply, handing the sheet over. Chuck scanned it –

A picture of a middle-aged white man. A consulting company. A Fulcrum file.

"Richter Consulting, 33rd floor," Chuck said. "Has offices in Washington, Phoenix, and Tampa. Owned by Bob Richter, formerly of the NSA – and Fulcrum."

"Thirty-third floor!" Casey shouted as they crossed the lobby back to the elevator.

As soon as the doors had closed, the security guard picked up the phone. "Yeah, Mr. Richter? You're about to have company."

* * *

******Richter Consulting**

******33****rd**** Floor, Chase Tower**

"Time's up, Director Walker," Mullins said evilly.

Sarah didn't say a word. "Well, we'll start with Ellie, then," Mullins said. "I think… hmmm, what do you think, Mr. Early? Mutilation or violation?"

"Whatever," Jubal Early replied. "Whatever you feel like."

"I think we'll ask the President," Mullins laughed, pulling a quarter out of his pocket. "Heads, George Washington tells us to mutilate her. Tails, the Eagle tells us to violate her."

He flipped the quarter up into the air, and let it land on the floor. "Tails," he announced. "Violation it is!"

Crossing to Ellie, he grabbed her by the hair, and picked her up, forcing her handcuffs up and over the back of the chair. "On your knees, bitch," he snarled. He began to undo his belt buckle, when Bob Richter came running in.

"We've got a problem," he yelled. "Bartowski and Casey fuckin' found us somehow. I told you we couldn't mess with these guys!"

"Shut up, Bob," Mullins replied. Turning to Sarah, he drew his TASER and shot her again. She slumped over in her chair. "Come on, let's grab Director Walker and head for the roof. I can have a Fulcrum bird here to pick us up in five minutes."

Then he paused. "Oh, but wait. It'll be from the Phoenix Police Department, and their helicopters only carry four. I'm so sorry, Mr. Early, but Director Walker's a FAR more valuable commodity than you are."

He aimed the TASER again, and shot Jubal Early in the center of his chest. Early fell to the ground, paralyzed from the electric shock.

Mullins and Richter dragged Sarah Walker to the elevator bank. Seconds later, an elevator arrived. They dragged her in, Mullins pressed the "Roof" button, Richter swiped his key card, and the doors closed.

No more than two minutes later, there was a "ding" announcing the arrival of the other elevator. The four women all cringed, expecting their torturers to have returned – but instead, were greeted with the welcome sight of seven very familiar black-suited men piling out of the elevator.

Chuck gasped when he saw Ellie on her side, and ran to her, pulling her upright and pulling off her blindfold. "Are you okay?" he whispered, pulling her into a hug.

"I'm fine," she replied, trying not to burst into tears. "But… you might want to check on Kaylee."

Casey and Mal were working on freeing Zoe. Simon was comforting River. Devin and Morgan both rushed to Ellie's side as soon as Chuck stood, and Jayne stood guard in front of the elevator.

Chuck winced as he stood up, a tightness still present in the left side of his chest. "It'll be there for a while," Dr. Russell had told him. It still hurt.

As he crossed the room to Kaylee, she looked him in the eyes, trying to smile. When he reached her, he removed the small cutters from his utility belt, reached behind her, and cut her handcuffs. Then, without a word, he folded her into his embrace. She broke then, her breath coming in great heaves. "Oh God," she cried. "Oh, God, oh, God, he was going to rape me."

Chuck's eyes widened, and he pulled back. "WHAT?!" he gasped, shocked. "WHO was going to rape you?"

Kaylee pointed at the prostrate form of Jubal Early on the floor behind Chuck. Chuck turned to see him, and turned back to Kaylee. "Who the hell is that?"

Kaylee tried to answer, but couldn't speak. She didn't have to.

"His name is Jubal Early," Mal said, his voice sounding dead. "He invaded my ship over eight years ago. He threatened to rape Kaylee, told her he'd do horrible things to her if she tried to stop him. I'm going to guess that he offered to follow through on that."

"Is that true?" came Jayne's voice from behind Chuck. "Did he…"

Kaylee nodded. Chuck saw Mal's face go void of emotions, and then saw Mal make eye contact with Jayne. Chuck turned to Jayne, and saw him nod.

Crossing to Early, both Mal and Jayne reached down and lifted him to his feet. Then, Mal brought his arm back and gave Early an almighty smack across the face, waking him up.

"Jubal Fucking Early," he snarled. "I can't believe I didn't notice your stench the moment you landed on Earth."

"Malcolm Reynolds," Early replied. "What exactly do you want with me?"

"Remember what I did to you last time I saw you?" Mal asked menacingly.

"You kicked me, and I floated off into space, where I was lucky enough to be retrieved by some lovely folk from Greenleaf," Early replied.

"Guess what," Mal said. "I'm gonna do it again, and it's going to be a little more permanent this time."

"Mal, wait!" Casey shouted, but it was too late.

Jayne brought his gun up and shot the window behind Early. As the glass shattered, Malcolm Reynolds lifted his right foot, and put his boot directly into Early's chest with all the force he could muster. Early staggered backwards –

Right out the opening where the window had been.

There was a scream as he fell – and then there was no more sound.

Except for the sound of a helicopter taking off from the roof of the Chase Tower.

"What the hell?" Casey asked, looking out the window. "Phoenix PD?"

"That's them," Zoe said quietly. "That's Mullins and the other guy. They have Sarah Walker with them."

Chuck lifted his head toward the ceiling. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His chest twinged with pain. "Dammit," he breathed. "God dammit."

Bringing his head back down, he said, "John, I'm turning this operation over to you. I'm not in good enough physical shape, and I'm certainly in no emotional state to be leading this mission."

Casey looked at him. Then, he said, "Alright, Chuck. I want you to take the Suburban and get all these civilians to the Nerd Herd office. You've got a safe house there, right?"

Chuck nodded. "Good. They should be alright there. I'll commandeer a police car or something, and then I'm going to find out where that helicopter went, and then I'm going to go retrieve Sarah."

Mal turned to face him. "I'm going with you."

"No," Casey said automatically.

"Me too," Jayne stated.

"No," Casey replied. "Neither of you is going with me."

"Colonel Casey," Mal said, "we are combat trained, and we have had a hell of a lot of experience fighting scumbags. It'll be a suicide mission if you go alone. We're going with you."

"As am I," Zoe announced, standing up.

Casey threw his hands in the air and looked to the ceiling. "Fine. You can all three come. It'll be like the Village People do special ops."

Simon turned his riot gear and weaponry over to Zoe. Casey and the three _Serenity_ crew left, leaving the four men and three women standing in the now drafty thirty-third floor office.

"Let's go," Chuck said tiredly, heading for the elevator. "It's time to go hide."


	10. A Woman Scorned

_Warning to readers: this chapter contains a certain amount of rather graphic violence. Reader discretion is advised._

_Also, this is the last chapter that I would characterize as "dark". The story will return to a certain degree of light and fluffiness in the next chapter._

**

* * *

****4:45 A.M.**

**July 13****th****, 2018**

**9000 N. Central Avenue**

**Phoenix, Arizona**

The old blue Ford Crown Victoria blazed north on Central Avenue going at least 30 mph over the posted speed limit of 40. Casey had commandeered the car at gunpoint, taking the keys to the car from the lobby security officer.

"Old cop car," he said, sitting down in the driver's seat. "Not quite as shiny as my old Crown Vic, but it'll do."

Jayne looked at him curiously. "Did you just call your car shiny?"

"Yeah," Casey replied, turning over the Ford's big V8 engine. "I've called stuff that I liked 'shiny' for years."

Jayne turned and looked at Mal. Mal shrugged.

Casey had gone flying out of the Chase Tower parking garage with enough velocity to catch a little air. Slamming down onto Monroe Street, he had powerslid the Crown Vic to go west bound and then again to head north on Central. He looked in the rear view mirror and noticed Captain Reynolds' pale face, with no small satisfaction.

"Talk to me, Larkin," he had said to his Bluetooth, trying to get a fix on the helicopter.

"The chopper's headed north," he heard. "Just head straight north and follow it."

Casey had gone blazing up Central Avenue, but now, as he flew past Dunlap Avenue, he began to notice something disquieting. He wasn't the only one.

"Uh, John, the street's getting really narrow really quickly," Zoe said from the backseat.

"Yeah, I can see – shit," he said, as Central came climbing to a dead end. "Larkin! We've run into a mountain!"

"Yeah," Bryce replied. "Uh, your GPS is showing that you just passed Dunlap Avenue?"

"I think so," Casey said. "I have no idea."

"Okay, well, turn around, and go back down to the intersection at Dunlap," Bryce instructed. "Then turn right, go… looks like one point five miles west to Nineteenth Avenue, and turn right."

Casey wheeled the Crown Vic around, and that's when he noticed a couple of non-standard switches on the dashboard. Flipping them, he was rewarded with flashing lights lighting up in the grille and back window, and sirens blaring.

"Once a cop, always a cop," he muttered with a grin. "Shiny."

He now appeared to have justification to drive like a maniac as he weaved his way in and out of the very early morning commute on Dunlap. As he swung a hard right to head north onto 19th Avenue, the sun was beginning to peek its way over the mountains.

Casey's phone rang. "They've landed," Bryce said. "Deer Valley Municipal Airport, and they've gone inside a hangar."

"Think it's the same trick as they pulled on us in Redlands?" Casey asked.

"I don't know," Bryce replied. "I don't think so – they didn't have any advance warning on this one."

"Don't kid yourself, Larkin," Casey growled. "This is Fulcrum we're talking about here."

"Yeah, well, you're only six miles away," Bryce replied as they crossed over Cactus Road. "Just keep heading north, and the hangar will be the fifth building on your right just north of Deer Valley Road."

Casey disconnected. The only noise in the car for the next few minutes was the blare of the siren and the roar of the engine. Mal and Zoe carefully checked their guns, making sure they were properly loaded and ready. Jayne had his finger resting on the trigger guard of his gun – he had called it "Vera", even made sure to introduce "her" to Casey.

When Casey reached the right hangar at Deer Valley Airport, he didn't bother with driveways – he just yelled, "Hang on!", hung a hard right, and plowed through the chain link fence onto the airport grounds. One of his tires was punctured, but it didn't seem to matter as they spun around the front of the hangar and the car skidded to a stop.

"Federal agents! GET ON THE GROUND!" Casey boomed as he leapt out of the Crown Vic and crouched behind its driver's door, the car's high beams illuminating the interior of the hangar.

Then Casey stood up straight. Those same high beams that illuminated the hangar's interior clearly showed that there was nothing in it but an abandoned Phoenix Police helicopter.

Casey started to growl quietly, then his growl rose to an unintelligible roar as he stalked toward the helicopter, raised his gun, and put an entire clip through its windshield. "SON OF A FUCKING BITCH!" he bellowed, throwing his gun to the ground.

He was quiet for a moment, and then, "SHIT!"

Hanging his head, he dropped his fists to his side, clenching and unclenching them. The three _Serenity_ crew all stayed by the Crown Vic, afraid to approach him. Finally, he lifted his head.

"Call: Bryce Larkin."

Casey was still for a moment, and then he spoke again. "We lost them."

* * *

**6:02 A.M.**

**Abandoned CostCo store**

**27****th**** Avenue just north of Bell Road**

**Phoenix, Arizona**

Bob Richter cowered in the corner of the former warehouse store, hands over his ears, trying to block out the horrible noise.

An hour earlier, the helicopter they were in had landed at Deer Valley Airport, and parked in a hangar where a Fulcrum agent was waiting for them with a Lincoln Towncar. Frank Mullins had proceeded to tie up both the agent and the Phoenix PD pilot at gunpoint, and thrown them into the trunk of the Towncar.

He forced the still-restrained Sarah Walker into the backseat of the car, and then had to hold Richter at gunpoint to get him into the car. "I won't tell anybody, I swear," Richter had begged. "I just don't want to be involved with this anymore."

"Oooh, tough shit!" Mullins had replied, with a somewhat maniacal laugh.

Mullins had swung the Towncar around onto the driveway out of the airport. As he pulled out and turned left onto the street marked 19th Avenue, Richter saw what looked like an unmarked police car crash through the chain link fence right next to the hangar they had just been in.

"Idiots," Mullins muttered under his breath.

When they reached the old CostCo, Mullins had decided he was going to take his revenge on Director Walker not by killing her, not by beating her, not by torturing her – but by violating her as thoroughly as he possibly could. The first time around, she had screamed – a horrible scream, one that tore at your mind like a bulldozer tears at concrete.

At that point, Richter had had to go outside the store. A few minutes later, Mullins joined him outside. "Beautiful morning," he had said. "Get your ass back inside the store or I'll kill you."

Now Mullins had started up round two. Sarah Walker wasn't screaming this time. Just whimpering in pain and fear. And Richter couldn't take it anymore.

Going as far away from Mullins as he could, he slid his gun out of the waistband of his pants and pulled his phone out of his pocket. With trembling hands, he dialed a number he knew by heart.

One ring. Two rings. "CIA Langley, this is the switchboard, how may I direct your call?"

"I need to speak with DDO Larkin," he whispered.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I can't simply connect calls to Director Larkin," the woman who answered the phone replied.

"Tell him that Bob Richter is on the line."

There was silence for a moment, and then another ring.

"Richter, you are in deeper shit than you could probably have ever imagined," Bryce Larkin's voice sounded angrily in his ear.

Richter didn't reply. He just said, "Tell Casey that we're at the abandoned CostCo. It's on 27th Avenue, north of Bell."

Then, he cocked his gun, stuck it in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

* * *

Sarah's mind had almost detached itself at this point. Her body was being brutalized, but her mind was acting as an outside observer. With every move that Mullins made, her mind analyzed his weaknesses, trying to figure out a plan of escape, and determining whether her body would be physically able. 

When Bob Richter's gun came off, it was a shock to both Mullins and Sarah. Mullins stopped what he was doing, stood up, and fastened his pants. Sarah heard his footsteps echo as he crossed to where Richter was.

"Aw, Bob, what the fuck did you go and do that for," she heard him say. "You're no good to me dead!"

As Sarah's mind analyzed this, it realized that the curled-up position she had been left in on the floor placed her in a spot where her left hand could reach the stiletto concealed in the heel of her right boot. Straining her fingers, she managed to release the weapon. Very carefully, so as not to stab herself, she used the point to pick the lock on her handcuffs, releasing her hands – and then she just lay there.

She tensed her arms as Mullins returned, and then, when he was in range, she struck like a snake. Moving quickly despite the severe abuse her body had been subjected to in the last eighteen hours, she plunged the stiletto into the back of his right knee. Mullins howled in pain, like a wounded dog, and collapsed to the floor.

He had left his gun belt on the floor. His TASER, his stun gun, and his 9 millimeter Beretta were all holstered on it. As he writhed in pain, Sarah slowly got to her feet, and limped over to the gun belt.

Drawing the TASER, she spoke. Her speech was slurred from the damage her nervous system had endured, but Mullins still understood her just fine when she said, "Well, lookie what we have here."

Carefully, she aimed the TASER, and then pulled the trigger. The dart flew straight and true, penetrating Mullins' pants and delivering 20,000 volts of electricity directly to his crotch. He screamed in pain, an unearthly scream like Sarah had never heard before. But she didn't care.

The next thing she drew from Mullins' gun belt was the stun gun. "I cannot begin to count the number of times you've zapped me with this thing since noon yesterday," she slurred, a growl beginning to form in the back of her throat.

"SO LET'S SEE HOW YOU LIKE IT!"

She dove to the floor, careful not to touch him, and slammed the stun gun against his right cheek – where the metal plate was. As she pulled the trigger, the electricity flowed out of the gun directly into that metal plate, frying any tissue it touched. Her eyes grew wild and an animal intensity filled her. A primal scream ripped involuntarily from her throat as Mullins was electrocuted. His scream grew higher and higher in pitch, until finally, he could scream no more.

When the stun gun's battery ran dead, Sarah had crossed the line of sanity. She began to beat Mullins with her fists, not caring if he was alive or dead – this was revenge, plain and simple.

* * *

**6:11 A.M.**

When Casey entered the abandoned store, the only thing he heard was the distinctive sound of flesh hitting flesh. "Federal agents!" he called. "Put your hands in the air!"

Lifting the Maglite that had been in the security agent's car, he saw what appeared to be Sarah Walker whaling on what he wasn't sure was a living human or a corpse. "Director Walker!" he called as he approached. "Walker! You need to stop!"

But she wasn't listening. He could hear sobs of frustration and rage tearing out of her as she continued to pound away. When he reached her, he carefully and gently touched her left shoulder.

"Sarah."

She stopped instantly. She pulled away from the body, sat down on the floor heavily. She raised her blood-covered hands to eye level, looked at them, and then looked up at Casey. "You never called me Sarah before," she said softly, almost sounding like a little girl.

Casey looked from Sarah to the body next to her. "My God," he gasped. "Is that Mullins?"

Sarah just nodded.

Casey was astounded at what was left of the former Fulcrum agent. His eyes had burst out of his skull, his trachea had exploded, and Sarah seemed to have beaten the left hand side of his head into a bloody pulp. "Jesus Christ," he breathed involuntarily.

Sarah looked over at what was left of Mullins, and began to shake violently. "I didn't have a choice," she sobbed. "He… he… he raped me… he was going to do it again… and again…"

Mal, Zoe, and Jayne had walked up behind Casey. Zoe and Jayne stared in shock and horror at Frank Mullins' corpse, but Mal crouched down by Sarah, removed his jacket, and wrapped it around her shoulders. Then, he wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her tight against him.

Sarah's hands grasped his shirt lapels, and she buried her face in his chest. "He… he… it… it hurt so bad," she cried softly. "I had to…"

The hardened, trained, long time CIA agent, assassin, and deputy director turned into a quivering mess as she totally lost control in Mal's arms. "Shhh," he said gently. "It's okay. You did alright.

"He's not going to hurt anybody anymore."


	11. The Big Damn Hero

**11:20 A.M. EDT**

**July 13****th****, 2018**

**Office of Bryce Larkin (DD(O), CIA)**

**Washington, D.C.**

"Good Lord almighty," Bryce whispered as he saw the pictures of Frank Mullins. "What the hell did she do?"

"She shot him in the crotch with a TASER, then barbecued him by using a stun gun on the metal plate in his face, and then she just beat the shit out of him until we showed up," John Casey replied, with a small tinge of pride and satisfaction coming across in his voice.

"Is she alright?" Bryce asked with concern.

"Is she al- no, she's not alright!" Casey practically exploded. "She was tortured for eighteen hours, zapped repeatedly, raped twice, and brutally killed a man! The only person she'll even talk to right now is Malcolm Reynolds – don't ask me why, I sure as hell don't understand it."

"Where are you right now?"

"We're at St. Joseph's Hospital in central Phoenix," Casey said. "Sarah's in the E.R. right now, being treated for the injuries she suffered during the rapes. Once she's released from here, she's going to be transferred across the street to Barrow's Neurological Institute – they want to do a full workup on her, see just how much damage was done to her nervous system by being TASEd and stunned over a dozen times in an eighteen hour span."

"Where is everybody else?"

"They're all at the Nerd Herd safe house. I dropped Zoe Washburne and Jayne Cobb off there; I had Mal Reynolds stay with Sarah so that the hospital staff had some way of communicating with her."

Bryce stopped for a moment, and looked at the pages of notes spread across his desk. "So let me see if I've got this straight," he started. "I have a top level program director in questionable health on the eleventh floor of an office building in central Phoenix, along with a GSA employee, and seven civilians, five of whom are from 500 years in the future. In addition to that, I have the DD(I) of the CIA in a hospital with possible neurological injuries, the only person she will communicate with is another civilian from 500 years in the future, leaving a semi-retired NSA colonel as the only fully competent and able person to oversee this operation?"

Casey mulled it over for a moment. "Yep," he responded. "That sounds about right."

Bryce was silent for quite a while, and when he finally spoke, he said, "Jesus H. Christ. I knew I should've joined the circus."

* * *

**8:22 A.M. MST**

**Omaha Project Safe House**

**Nerd Herd Phoenix Corporate Center**

**2701 N. Central Avenue**

**Phoenix, Arizona**

Chuck looked around the safe house and was struck by its sheer opulence for probably the tenth time in the last few hours. It had originally been designed as an executive office and residential suite for Leonard Shoen, the founder of U-Haul, just as the Nerd Herd Corporate Center had originally been the corporate headquarters for U-Haul, until the truck company had pulled up its roots and relocated to north Phoenix in 2015.

When the small, ragtag group had arrived at the safe house just over three hours earlier, Chuck had told Ellie about the events of the last several hours. She had been initially concerned over his heart attack, and then outraged over the fact that he would leap out of bed and go on a highly dangerous mission a few hours later. At the first twinge of pain Chuck felt, Ellie had jumped all over him, informing him that he was going to "sit your ass down and be quiet."

Nerd Herd employees had set up rollaway beds for everybody to sleep on. Chuck had offered Devin and Ellie the king size bed in the bedroom, which they had readily accepted. Everybody was now asleep, though Devin had called his mother to let her know that everything was now okay and that they'd be home in a few hours. Of course, she had chewed on his ear for a good five minutes about how he'd called at 7:00 the night before, said there was a problem, and could she watch the kids, with no explanation, but as Devin said after hanging up, "Hey, if they couldn't chew you out, what else would mothers do?"

Chuck was the only one still awake when Casey dropped Zoe and Jayne off. He had had two more rollaways set up for them, and now they were asleep as well. But Chuck couldn't fall asleep. Despite having been up for more than twenty-four hours now, despite having had a minor heart attack, despite being utterly exhausted, he could not sleep.

Finally, at almost noon, he gave up. Taking the elevator down to the ground floor, he exited out to the parking garage. Picking the first Herder he saw, he climbed inside, fired it up, and exited the garage for the two minute drive to the hospital.

He walked into the lobby of St. Joseph's, and handed his CIA ID card to the receptionist. "I need to see one of your patients, Sarah Walker," he said.

She tapped a few keys, checked the computer records, and then said, "I'm sorry, but Ms. Walker is in a high security wing. She's set for transfer to Barrow's in two hours, and her doctor has given strict orders that she not be disturbed."

Chuck looked at the ceiling and sighed. Reaching in his pocket, he pulled out his National Command Authority ID, the one with the black band and the words "by authorization of the President of the United States." Handing that ID card to the receptionist he said, "I REALLY need to see Sarah Walker."

She looked at the ID, back up at Chuck, and down at the ID again, her eyes growing a little wider with each shift in her gaze. Finally, she handed the ID back to Chuck, and simply said, "Room 486."

Chuck did not go immediately to Sarah's room. He stopped first at the hospital gift shop, where he found himself utterly frustrated by the lack of decent choices they had for sick people. Finally deciding on a small teddy bear that said, "I survived Phoenix" on its t-shirt, he headed upstairs.

When he entered room 486, he found Sarah awake, staring at the wall across from her blankly. Mal Reynolds sat next to her, holding her hand, looking utterly exhausted.

Sarah's head turned as Chuck came into the room. A small smile crossed her lips. "Hi, Chuck," she said softly.

Mal looked from Sarah to Chuck and back again in amazement. "You're the first person other than me who she's spoken to since we found her," he said.

"I'm just special like that," Chuck said.

"Yeah, you're special alright," Sarah deadpanned in a whisper. "Did you get me a 'sorry you got the shit beat out of you' present?"

"Well, I wouldn't QUITE put it that way," Chuck replied, "but… yes."

He handed her the teddy bear. She looked at it, read the t-shirt, and laughed quietly. "Ironically appropriate," she snarked. "I survived Phoenix. Bearly."

"Oh, God," Chuck groaned. "That's just… that's so bad words cannot describe it."

Sarah smiled, a twinkle starting to appear in her eyes. "Mal," she said, turning to him, "would you mind if Chuck and I talked in a private for a minute?"

"Not at all," Mal said, standing. "Take all the time you need."

As he exited the room, Chuck crossed to the chair he had been in and sat down. "So, we've all been trying to figure out why he was the only person you'd talk to," he said.

"I'm not sure," Sarah replied tiredly. "I think it's because after they found me, he just held me for about fifteen minutes, and let me just cry and cry. I felt safe with him, and after all I'd been through, it was like my brain shut down and just wouldn't let me talk to anybody but him."

She paused. "But then, when you walked in the door… you've been the single most stable part of my life for the past eleven years, and seeing you, it was like a switch in my mind got reset, and I felt safe to talk to other people again. Or at least, to you. Casey could walk in the door, and for all I know, I might freak out."

"He provokes that reaction in a lot of people," Chuck said wryly.

He drew in a breath and let it back out slowly. "I suppose I should go back to the safe house," he said. "If Ellie wakes up and finds me not there, I might be a dead man."

Standing up, he said, "Do you want me to send Mal back in? Or do you want to be by yourself?"

"Send him back in, if you wouldn't mind," Sarah replied. "I mean, I feel okay right now, but when you walk out the door, I might go back to being scared to be alone, and it'd be nice to have somebody in here. Besides which, he's pretty hot, and I enjoy having him around."

She stopped suddenly, and Chuck raised his eyebrows, an impish grin forming on his face.

"Uh… I think that last bit was the morphine talking," Sarah rationalized. "Do me a favor and keep that to yourself, would you?"

"It's gonna cost you," Chuck laughed as he went out the door.

Mal walked in the door a moment later, a puzzled look on his face.

"What did Chuck mean when he said that her royal highness wanted my fine ass back in the room?"

* * *

**5:30 P.M. MST**

**Omaha Project Safe House**

**Phoenix, Arizona**

"So, we were able to identify all the dead-cover Fulcrum agents using the information in Mullins' PDA," Casey said. "It looks like it's safe for us to go back to Los Angeles."

"Casey, it's been one day," Chuck protested. "How is that possible?"

"Your agents," Casey replied. "We got the names out to your Omaha agents, they figured out where the Fulcrum folk were, and the FBI took them down right quick."

Chuck shook his head. "If only we always had such efficiency."

"Keep dreamin', Chuckles," Casey cracked. "Anyway, we can go back; however, Barrow's Neurological Institute is insisting Sarah stays here for at least a week. I'm not too comfortable with leaving her here alone, so we need somebody to stay here with her."

"I'll stay," Mal said immediately. He had been brought to the safe house when Sarah was taken over to Barrow's.

"I was thinking Chuck, Morgan, or myself," Casey replied. "A government person."

"Does it really matter, though?" Mal asked. "It's only five blocks from here to the hospital – it's not like I'm going to get lost between here and there. You've got an entire agency office here – I'm sure you can spare an agent to make sure I don't do something stupid."

Casey looked at Chuck. Chuck shrugged noncommittally. Casey turned back to Mal. "Well," he said, "it's not ideal… but if you're willing to do it, we've got the assets here to keep an eye on you, and that would keep the three of us free to keep an eye on the rest of your motley crew."

An hour later, Chuck, Casey, Devin, Ellie, and the remainder of the _Serenity_ crew were downstairs, loading a Suburban and a company Lincoln for the trip to the airport.

"Don't you think it's a little odd that Mal wanted to stay behind with her?" Casey asked nobody in particular.

"Not at all," Zoe said. "Clearly you haven't seen the looks he gives her when she isn't watching."

"Seriously?" Casey replied. "I haven't seen anything at all."

"That's because you're a man, Casey," Ellie chided him. "Of course you wouldn't notice it."

"And of course," Kaylee interjected, "even though she really saved herself, he's the one that gave her a safe place to go to after they found her. As a result, her mind will perceive him as her big damn hero, so I don't think she'll mind either."

"Mal's her 'big damn hero'?" Chuck asked in disbelief.

Zoe smiled. "Isn't he just."


	12. I'll Be In My Bunk

**8:05 A.M.**

**Saturday, July 21****st****, 2018**

**Disneyland**

**Anaheim, California**

"Come on! Let's go!" shouted little Chuck, straining against the hands holding his own hands and keeping him from dashing into the park like the over-excited little dervish that he'd suddenly turned into.

"Hold your horses, little man," Chuck replied, keeping a firm grasp on little Chuck's left hand with his right. "Space Mountain's not going anywhere."

"I KNOW, but the line'll be huge by the time we get there!" whined little Chuck.

"Come on, Chuck, your mom's never been here before," Chuck explained. "She wants to see it all too."

And seeing it all Kaylee was. Here eyes had gone wide upon entering the park – _she looks like a kid in Santa's workshop right before Christmas_, Chuck thought.

A week earlier, Chuck, his sister and brother-in-law, Casey, Morgan, and the _Serenity_ crew had returned to Los Angeles from Phoenix, late on the night of Friday the 13th. Mal had stayed behind in Phoenix to keep an eye on Sarah. "Sarah's big damn hero," Kaylee had called him.

After Devin and Ellie had gone to pick up little Chuck and their own two – Michael and Jordan – from Devin's mother's place, Zoe had approached Chuck and Casey with a request.

"The crew's been through a lot the last couple of days," she said. "And we were all kind of getting cabin fever being cooped up in that hotel in Santa Clarita anyway. Is there any way – any way at all that we can just take a few days to go do our own things?"

Chuck and Casey had ended up spending almost two hours on the phone with Bryce before they were able to talk him into it. Finally, Bryce had grudgingly agreed, but with the condition that each member of _Serenity_'s crew have an escort of some sort.

River and Jayne had decided they wanted to visit Las Vegas. Apparently, River had seen some commercials for the Mirage, and had come to the conclusion that she could figure out any game in any casino, just based on laws of probability, "and her enormous genius," Simon had cracked. She had gotten to talking with Jayne about it, and they had come up with a plan to royally rip off some casinos – "Entirely legally, of course," Jayne had said with a gigantic smile.

With the warning from Chuck that if they got into trouble, he wasn't bailing them out, they had headed off for Vegas in the CIA Gulfstream, with Colonel Tweedum and Morgan going along to keep them out of trouble.

Simon had chosen to simply stay in Los Angeles for the time being. He said that he wanted to spend some time on the beach, maybe visit some of the more eclectic shopping areas in downtown, learn a little more about the city. Chuck had decided that if that was the case, Simon would be okay with just an agent tailing him rather than actually escorting him.

Zoe had decided she wanted to try her hand at big-game hunting, after reading in a magazine that there was an overabundance of elk in northern Arizona. Despite having grumbled about how much he hated Arizona while they were there, Casey agreed to escort her with surprising alacrity.

"Don't you think it's odd how quickly Casey said he'd go with Zoe?" Chuck had asked Kaylee.

"What I think is odd is how quickly my ship's crew seems to be snapping up American intelligence agents," Kaylee replied. "It's like… well, it's like nothing I've ever seen before."

Chuck and Kaylee had ended up just staying in the south bay area. Chuck had some work he had to catch up on with the Nerd Herd, and Ellie insisted that he go back and see Dr. Russell for an EKG. He was fine – "Like I said," he had grumped – but he was placed on two different medications – one for his heart, one for his blood pressure.

He had taken Kaylee and little Chuck to Long Beach to see the _Queen Mary_, and then on Friday, Ellie had had the day off, so she took Kaylee to South Coast Plaza – "If you liked the Beverly Center, this is gonna blow your mind," Ellie had told Kaylee. Jordan and Mike had gone to Devin's mother's for the day again so that Chuck and little Chuck could "have a little father/son time," Ellie had decided. Devin's mother had asked if she could expect them to be picked up that day, or if there was going to be another "family emergency." Ellie had pointedly ignored her.

So that Friday, after Ellie and Kaylee had left with Ellie's two kids, Chuck and little Chuck were left sitting in the house. Little Chuck was engrossed in Sesame Street, but when it ended, he turned to his father and said, "I want to go ride the trains."

And so they had. They had driven to the end of the L.A. County Metro Green Line, gotten on board, ridden it to South Central L.A., hopped on the Blue Line, and took that to downtown. At that point, they got on the Red Line subway, which fascinated little Chuck NO end. They ended up riding on that for a couple hours before heading back home.

When Ellie and Kaylee had come home that night, Ellie had suggested going to Disneyland the next day. "But weren't you just there last week?" Chuck had asked.

"Yeah, but I'm sure the kids wouldn't mind going again," Ellie had replied, "and Kaylee's obviously never been… so we should go!"

And so now, Chuck, Kaylee, little Chuck, Devin, Ellie, and Michael and Jordan were headed into the Happiest Place on Earth. "This is unbelievable," Kaylee whispered.

"And you haven't even been on any of the rides yet," Chuck replied with a laugh.

Little Chuck insisted on going on Space Mountain first. Chuck was not exactly excited about standing in that line first thing in the morning. "PLEASE, Dad?" little Chuck begged.

"Come on, Big Chuck!" Kaylee joked. "Little Chuck wants to go!"

Chuck gave her a look. "I am not Big Chuck," he deadpanned. "My old boss at Buy More was Big Mike. I do not plan to EVER take on the 'Big' moniker."

"I could call you Old Chuck instead…"

And with that, Chuck turned and faced forward, pretending to ignore Kaylee. "Look, Chuck, Daddy thinks he can be all big and bad and not talk to Mommy," Kaylee said with a laugh.

Chuck was doing his best to keep a smile from breaking out on his face. That effort came to a screeching halt when he found himself on the receiving end of a tickle attack from Kaylee and little Chuck.

Breaking away from them, he whirled and faced them with a look of mock rage. "How DARE you, you monsters!" he gasped. "I am appalled!"

"Oh, shut up," Kaylee laughed, stepping up to Chuck and quieting him by kissing him.

"Ewww!" little Chuck objected.

As they got closer to the head of the line, little Chuck was surprised by both Mickey Mouse and Buzz Lightyear coming through the line. Kaylee was equally surprised by Mickey Mouse. "My God," she whispered, "I remember seeing him in a really, really old video when I was a little girl."

"Really?" Chuck asked. "What was it?"

"I think… it was called Fantasy, or something like that…"

"_Fantasia_," Chuck corrected her. "Wow, I can't believe that survives till the 26th century."

Eventually, they got to the front of the line. Kaylee and little Chuck sat together in the front of a car; Chuck sat behind them. As they climbed the ramp, little Chuck was getting visibly excited – and then, he turned and saw his mother.

"Mommy," he asked with concern, "why do you look bored? Aren't you excited?"

Kaylee shrugged. "I've been in space," she said as the cars reached the top of the first ramp and started up the second. "I guess a ride set in space just doesn't do anything for me."

As the announcer started counting down to "liftoff", she continued, "And that, that's just cheesy. You know, there's got to be something they can do to make it more- GAH!"

Chuck grinned as the roller coaster took a dive off the climb, completely catching Kaylee off guard. He heard her scream with each dive and swoop the roller coaster took. When it ended, she just sat there in shock as the car coasted into the boarding area.

"Did you like it, Mommy?" little Chuck asked excitedly.

She didn't reply for a moment. When she finally spoke, it was very quiet, and she simply said, "Shiny."

They stayed at the park for the rest of the day. Little Chuck dragged his parents all over, taking them to Splash Mountain, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean (twice), the Matterhorn, and Big Thunder Mountain before Devin and Ellie finally intervened at 3:00, offering to take little Chuck off their hands and take him over to California Adventure for a few hours.

Chuck and Kaylee, needing a slightly slower pace, readily agreed. They didn't stop going on rides, though – they just went on rides that it was easy to make out on. Haunted Mansion and Small World both fell victim to them.

However, they got a little out of control on the Teacups, trying to see how fast they could make their teacup turn. Kaylee ended up getting so dizzy that she threw up after exiting the ride, and Chuck had to crack open his heart medication and take one of the pills he had been prescribed.

"But, that's what Disneyland's all about," Chuck said as they sat on a bench, Kaylee drinking a bottle of water, Chuck waiting till his lightheadedness passed. "Adults acting like kids and just being generally stupid."

Just after 8:00, Ellie called Chuck to tell him that little Chuck and Jordan had both fallen asleep, and Michael was well on his way. Reluctantly, Chuck and Kaylee headed out of the park to meet Ellie and Devin back at their car.

The drive back to RPV was fairly quiet, with the three kids asleep in the back seat and Kaylee drifting in and out of consciousness on Chuck's shoulder. When they arrived pulled up in the driveway of the mansion, the house was dark, although, "It looks like somebody's watching a movie or something," Chuck said, noticing the flickering blue glow coming through the front window.

As they entered the front door, there were a few beeps, as whoever was watching the movie used the remote control to pause the movie and turn on the lights. As the lights came up, Chuck looked at the couch to see Simon sitting there, with his arm around –

Chuck couldn't believe his eyes. "Lou?!" he said.

She looked equally astonished. "Chuck?!"

Simon looked at Lou, and then at Chuck. "Wait a second," he said. "You two **know** each other?"

"Yeah, we dated briefly back in 2007," Chuck said distractedly, "but what the hell?"

Simon explained as Devin and Ellie herded the three kids upstairs to bed. "I went down to Santa Monica for the day," he started. "I went to the beach, went to the pier, visited the little veterans memorial they have down there. I got onboard the 704 bus back toward downtown so I could get the light rail back down here, when I saw the Buy More store that Chuck always used to talk about working at.

"I got off the bus to see what was so special about the store, wandered around there for a while – I had the manager, some guy named Lester, all over me for something like half an hour trying to get me to buy a laser-scan widescreen TV –"

"Why does that not surprise me," Chuck muttered.

"And then, I ended up going next door to that LargeMart place, and then I realized I hadn't eaten all day and I was starving," Simon continued, "and I saw this place called Lou's Deli, which sounded good. I went in there, Lou was working the counter, we got to talking – and here we are."

"Unbelievable," Chuck said, shaking his head as the doorbell rang.

Devin came bounding downstairs and answered the door. "Howdy, folks, welcome back!" he boomed.

Chuck turned around. "The hell?" he said, seeing eight people on the front porch. "Did you get a group rate?"

"What, are you Elliott Gould now?" Morgan snarked back.

Morgan, Tweedum, River, Jayne, Casey, Zoe, Mal, and Sarah all poured into the house. "It's like a gigantic awesome party!" Devin said happily.

Chuck looked at his brother-in-law and shook his head in despair. "It's a gigantic something, alright."

Everybody had found a seat on one couch or another, and started talking all at once about their adventures. Morgan noticed Lou, gave her a strange look, and then said hello to her. Pretty soon, the babbling din got to be too much. Chuck looked at Kaylee, who just shrugged. All the people who had just arrived were trying to tell their story above everybody else – everybody, that is, except for Mal and Sarah, who were sitting quietly on the loveseat –

Sarah snuggled up to Mal, with his arm around her? Chuck's eyes widened for a moment, and then turning his attention back to the ever-rising noise level, he stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled. The ear-splitting noise immediately silenced everybody in the room.

"O-KAY," he boomed. "If y'all want to tell your stories, that is just spiffy, but ONE. AT. A. TIME."

Zoe spoke first. "I downed a gigantic elk," she said proudly.

"Biggest one I've ever seen," Casey added admiringly. "It had a massive rack."

"Johnny arranged to have it cleaned up and shipped to me," Zoe said with a smile.

Chuck looked at her with furrowed brow, then turned his gaze to Casey. "Johnny?" he said, his eyebrows crawling up his forehead.

Casey blushed – yes, indeed, John Casey turned bright red. "No comment," he growled through pursed lips.

River spoke up. "Vegas was pretty good," she said. "I figured out what Jayne would have to bet and where he would have to play to win every time. We walked out of there with a few dollars."

"Really?" Sarah asked, speaking for the first time. "How'd you do?"

"We won about five hundred million dollars, give or take," River said nonchalantly.

The room went silent. One could've heard a pin drop. Finally, Casey spoke.

"Did you say five hundred MILLION?" he croaked.

"You betcha, Gramps!" Jayne replied happily. "River's still got about seventy million, I've got sixty million."

"Wait a second," Chuck said, raising his hand. "Where'd the other three hundred seventy million go?"

"We bought Playboy," Jayne announced.

Chuck looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "There is no way you paid that much money for a girlie magazine," he said.

At that point, Morgan looked at Chuck like HE'd lost his mind. "No, Chuck," Morgan interrupted. "You don't understand. They bought Playboy Enterprises from the Hefner estate."

Chuck's jaw dropped. "Ho-ly shit," he whispered.

"I shelled out an additional ten million for the Playboy Mansion," Jayne beamed, looking like a giddy teenage boy.

"That's not the craziest part of the whole Vegas trip, though," Morgan said. "Tell them about it, Mike."

Colonel Tweedum had been strangely quiet up to that point. "Uh…" he started. "Well, you see, thing is… umm…"

"Tweedum and River got drunk and got hitched by Elvis," Jayne burst out.

Simon's face went pale, and then went dark red. "What?" he asked in a dangerous tone.

"We… well, we kind of like each other a whole lot," Tweedum said weakly, backing away.

"Sit down, Simon," River ordered her brother. "Mike and I really connected… and maybe we didn't make the wisest choice… but we're not gonna back out on it!"

Chuck threw his hands up in despair. "I have stepped into an episode of the Jerry Springer show," he moaned. "Did anything NOT insane happen this week?"

"I got a clean bill of health," Sarah said quietly.

Every head in the room turned to look at her. "Thank God," Ellie breathed.

"I do have some damage to my nervous system," she continued. "I have to do a little bit of vocal therapy, and I'm going to have to do some physical therapy to be able to run again, but otherwise, I'm fine."

"I'm surprised Barrow's released you after just a week," Devin said.

"Well," Sarah said, "I promised them I'd take a leave of absence, and that I'd make sure I was under the supervision of a neurologist at all times."

She looked up at Devin. "I was hoping that you and Ellie could do that, because I know and trust the two of you. I'm also going to have to do a lot of counseling, so being around people I know as well as you will help a lot.

"The CIA will compensate you –"

Ellie stopped her. "Not necessary," she said. "You're family. You have been for years. We wouldn't dream of saying no to you."

Sarah began to tear up. "Thank you," she replied softly.

At that, Ellie stood up, crossed the room to Sarah, and drew her into a hug. When they broke off, Sarah sat down on the couch, wiping her eyes. At that point, Mal spoke for the first time.

"It seems to me we have a bit of a situation here," he started.

"To start with,_Serenity_ is toast. It would take more money and more time than we could dream of to fix her, and I don't know if the technology is available here and now to get her flying again. It breaks my heart to see her like that… but I don't know what else to do.

"Secondly, it seems like we've all become invested a little bit here in the 21st century. Simon seems to have connected with somebody, as has Zoe – don't even tell me you haven't," he said with a smile as she raised her hand to object. "I very much doubt anybody else could get away with calling John Casey 'Johnny'.

"Jayne and River now own a huge company, and River has apparently gotten herself married," he continued, shaking his head. "Even I seem to… well… seem to have fallen for a fairly special person." Sarah smiled as her cheeks turned a little pink.

"Of course, Kaylee has – whether by chance or by fate – been reunited with the person she fell in love with years ago, who also happens to be the father of a little boy who we have all come to love over the last few years.

"So," Mal said, leaning forward. "We are at a juncture. Sarah has told me that the United States has the technology, the ability to send us back to our own time, which we've seen before – when they came to rescue Chuck seven years ago."

_Ten_, Chuck thought, but didn't say anything.

"However, if we go back, we go back without a ship, and we go back to the not-so-welcoming arms of an Alliance that has kept us on the run for eight years. To me, that doesn't exactly sound like a real fun time."

He paused, collecting his thoughts. "I guess what I'm saying here is… do we want to go back?"

Mal looked around the room at his crew. None of them said anything, they just matched his gaze as he looked at them. Zoe, Jayne, Kaylee, Simon, River – all of their eyes saying the same thing.

"Alright," Mal said with a nod. Standing up, he turned to face Sarah.

"Deputy Director Walker," he spoke formally, "on behalf of the crew of the Firefly-class transport _Serenity_, I hereby request that the United States government grant us asylum from the persecution of the Alliance."

Sarah stood and took Mal's hand. "Captain Reynolds," she said, "on behalf of the government of the United States of America, I hereby grant you and your crew asylum. Welcome to America."

And with that, Mal wrapped his arms around Sarah and kissed her. It was no short kiss, either. Jayne let out a wolf whistle, and there was a spattering of applause.

Finally, Casey spoke up with, "Get a room!"

"Guest room upstairs is all ready to go," Ellie said jokingly.

However, Mal and Sarah decided to take her seriously, and headed upstairs to a chorus of whistles and laughter. Chuck and Casey looked at each other in open-mouthed astonishment. "Unbelievable," Casey muttered as Chuck shook his head in shock.

After that, the group dispersed. Casey, Jayne, Morgan, Tweedum, and Devin headed downstairs to Devin's "Insane Game Room," as Morgan called it. Ellie sequestered Zoe and River to grill them about their newfound relationships. Simon and Lou settled back in to go back to watching their movie, and Chuck and Kaylee headed outside.

Crossing the street, they stood on the bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and looked out across the waves. Kaylee cuddled up to Chuck, and they just stood there for a while, gazing at the reflection of the moon on the ocean's rippled surface.

Finally, Kaylee broke the silence. "You know," she said softly.

Then she stopped. "Yes?" Chuck asked.

"I was in one of those girlie magazines once, when I was nineteen," she continued.

Chuck's eyes widened, and he looked down at her. "You're kidding," he said in shock.

"Nope," she replied with a giggle. "I was young and stupid… but it was fun!"

Chuck didn't know what to say for a moment. When he spoke, it was not exactly what he intended to say.

"Do you have a copy?" he blurted. "I mean… no, I didn't want to say that…"

Kaylee looked up at him, and her little smile turned into an evil grin. "Why, Charles Bartowski, you dirty, dirty old man."

"That's not what I meant… I didn't mean…"

"Of course I still have a copy!"

Chuck looked down at her, then turned and strode across the street, heading back for the property.

"Where are you going?!" Kaylee called after him.

"I'll be in my bunk!" he shouted back over his shoulder.

She started running to catch up with him. "Not without me you won't!"


	13. A Leaf On the Wind

_This chapter quotes the Oliver Wendell Holmes poem "Tear Her Tattered Ensign Down." If you are at all familiar with the poem, you probably already know the context in which it will be used. Despite being fanfic, it was nonetheless a very difficult section for me to write… so prepare yourself._

* * *

**9:42 A.M.**

**Wednesday, August 1****st****, 2018**

**Edwards AFB, California**

The black Gulfstream came swooping in out of the sky and touched down on the Edwards runway like a menacing bird of prey. Slowing quickly to a stop, it turned and stopped in front of a hangar.

The hatch opened as a stairway was rolled up to the aircraft. Chuck, Casey, Sarah, and the crew of _Serenity_ exited the aircraft. Colonel Tweedum stayed onboard the aircraft, since it wouldn't be on the ground that long.

As they approached the hangar, its giant door rolled open into the ceiling – and there she was.

_Serenity_. She sat in the hangar, looking sad and forlorn. Her left turbine had been broken off in the crash – again – and sat next to the spaceship, looking like a forgotten leftover. There were noticeable fractures across the entire surface of the ship, and she was missing the landing feet on her right hand side.

Every window was gone. Scorch marks marred the aft of the ship, where the engines had flamed out after the ship was displaced from the 26th century. Mal's heart was heavy as he looked at his beloved _Serenity_.

"She'll be with you the rest of your life," he had been told nine years before, when he bought her. And now, she was at the end of her road. There would be no repairing _Serenity_. It pained Mal, yet another loss. All the losses during the war didn't begin to add up to Wash, Shepherd Book, and now his beloved _Serenity_.

"Is she safe to board?" Mal asked quietly.

"I've been told that she is," Sarah replied. "The engineers have placed caution markers in the places where the ship is structurally unsound, but otherwise, you should be able to get around her no problem."

"That being the case," Mal said, "I'd like to ask that my crew and I be able to go onboard alone for a few minutes, to say good-bye."

"Absolutely," Sarah confirmed. "Take all the time you need."

Mal, Zoe, Jayne, River, Simon, and Kaylee began to head toward the ship. They had crossed half the distance to the open cargo bay door when Mal stopped, looked at his crew, and turned around.

"Chuck," he called. "Are you coming?"

Chuck looked surprised. "I thought you just wanted the crew."

"You're part of my crew," Mal replied. "It may have only been for a little while, but you were part of the crew of _Serenity_."

Looking at Casey and Sarah with a shrug, Chuck jogged across the hangar floor to catch up to the spaceship crew.

They entered the cargo bay. It looked strange, lit with floodlights like it was. Chuck looked to the right to see his old Herder – NRDHRD3, the old California license plate still read. It looked like the car's anchors had broken when the ship crashed, and part of the passenger cabin had caved in.

Halfway across the cargo bay, Mal stopped. He stepped out in front of his crew and turned to face them. Reaching in his back pocket, he removed a small, black leather-bound book.

When Mal spoke, his voice was rough and thick with emotion. "I found this book at a little used bookstore in Phoenix," he said quietly. "It's a book of verse by Oliver Wendell Holmes. There's a poem that he wrote when the United States government proposed breaking up the frigate USS _Constitution_, which as I understand it, is still afloat today?"

He looked at Chuck, who nodded.

"Nonetheless," Mal continued, "this poem is appropriate to the occasion we are gathered for here today – the retirement of the Firefly class transport _Serenity_."

Pausing a moment to compose himself, Mal opened the book, and using his finger to keep track of his place, began to read:

"Aye, tear her tattered ensign down! Long has it waved on high,

And many an eye has danced to see that banner in the sky;

Beneath it rang the battle-shout, and burst the cannon's roar:

The meteor of the ocean air shall sweep the clouds no more!

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, where knelt the vanquished foe,

Where winds were hurrying o'er the flood, and waves were white below,

No more shall feel the victor's tread, or know the conquered knee:

The harpies of the shore shall pluck the eagle of the sea!

O better that her shattered hulk should sink beneath the wave!

Her thunders shook the mighty deep, and there should be her grave:

Nail to the mast her holy flag, set every threadbare sail,

And giver her to the god of storms, the lightning and the gail!"

When Mal stopped reading, there was not a dry eye among the crew. Mal's own cheeks were wet with the tears that had begun streaming down his face.

After a moment of silence, Mal spoke again. "_Serenity_ has been a good ship," he intoned. "She has had one wild career. We've lost some friends onboard her, and she has felt those losses."

He looked up, trying to keep from breaking down in front of the crew. "We've said goodbye to Shepherd Book, we've said goodbye to Wash, and now we say goodbye to _Serenity_.

"She will fly no more, but…"

Mal's voice got choked, as he forced out the final sentence. "She is a leaf on the wind... watch... watch how she... soars."

As Mal used Wash's final words to say goodbye to _Serenity_, he finally lost his composure, and unable to bear it any longer, quickly departed the ship through the cargo bay doors.

The rest of the crew wandered through the ship, touching a wall here, looking in a room there, saying goodbye to the ship they had called their home for years. River found herself in the control room, sitting in the pilot's chair, Simon in the infirmary. Jayne and Zoe both went their separate ways.

Kaylee and Chuck entered the engine room, hand-in-hand. As they did so, Kaylee noticed that Chuck's hand was shaking ever so slightly in her own. She looked at him, and noticed he was sweating.

"Are you alright, Chuck?" she asked, concern in her voice.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he replied, his voice saying otherwise.

Kaylee's eyes widened. "No, really," she said. "Is it your heart?"

Chuck looked down at her, and a smile played across his face. "Well," he said softly, "I guess you could say that."

* * *

When Sarah found Mal, he was standing in an alcove of _Serenity_'s hull, his forehead pressed against the hull, his eyes closed. She walked up behind him, and gently wrapped her arms around his chest, hugging him from behind. 

After a moment, he turned around, embracing her. He was quiet for a moment, and then said, "She's like my own child." His voice was hollow and he sounded like a man who had lost everything.

Sarah didn't say anything, just continued to hold him. Every so often, a sob would rumble its way up through Mal's chest and escape, but finally, he was still.

He took a deep breath, and let it out again. Backing away from Sarah a little, he looked her in the eyes, and said, "What's going to happen to her?"

"Well," Sarah replied, "she'll be disassembled, and her parts will be taken to the Air Force technology center in Nevada. They'll be studied, and hopefully we can use the technology to improve our-"

"No."

His interruption took Sarah aback. "What?" she asked. "But, this can be so –"

"I said no," Mal said firmly. "The United States might be all happiness and light right now, but eventually, it becomes part of the Alliance, and I will be damned if my ship helps that Godforsaken monstrosity in any way."

By now, his arms had dropped away from Sarah, he had backed further away from her, and adopted a hostile posture. "Mal –" she started, but was interrupted again before he could even speak.

"It's my ship, Sarah," he replied, a hard edge on his voice. "It's my name on the title. She is not going to be torn apart and studied by your scientists. Can you handle that?"

"Mal," Sarah pleaded with him, "I'm a United States intelligence officer. I can't just let this –"

Mal cut her off again. "It's not happening," he snapped. "And if you can't accept and understand that, then maybe it's a bad idea for things to go any further between us."

He stalked off, leaving Sarah standing under the ship by herself.

"Dammit," she said softly. "God dammit all to hell."

* * *

"I don't understand," Kaylee said. "What do you mean, 'I guess you could say that'? Is it your heart or not?" 

"Why don't you take a seat for a moment," Chuck said, guiding her to the jumpseat attached to the wall, next to where her hammock had been.

"Several years ago – for you, seven, for me, ten, so we'll just say several – we were in this engine room as a Reaver ship parked above us. You told me to strap myself into that very seat you're sitting in, just in case. I did so.

"A moment later, the Reaver ship dumped its trash, knocking _Serenity_ on her ear. You flew across the engine room, and I just happened to be able to grab you. We ended up just inches from each other – and, well, it was all downhill from there."

"Downhill?" Kaylee smirked.

"Well, you know what I mean," Chuck replied with a laugh. "The thing is, I fell in love with you, and then when I left, I thought I was never going to see you again.

"Now, years later, you get dumped in my lap again, and we have a son. I am not letting this opportunity go to waste."

Chuck slowly lowered himself down to one knee, reaching behind his back into the back pocket of his pants as he did so. Grasping the ring inside, he pulled it out and held it in his left hand.

Kaylee's face was a picture of happy shock as Chuck took her left hand in his right hand and said, "Kaylee, you mean more than the world to me. You coming into my life, and then coming back again – there is nothing better that could've ever happened to me.

"I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and our son, as a family. Kaylee Frye… will you marry me?"

Kaylee tried to say, "Yes," but suddenly found herself unable to speak as tears sprang unbidden to her eyes. A huge smile crossed her face, tears of joy spilling down her cheeks as she nodded emphatically.

Chuck smiled, then brought his left hand out from behind his back, and slipped the ring onto Kaylee's ring finger. Her eyes widened when she saw the ring, and her right hand flew to her mouth.

"Oh my God," she whispered. "It… it looks just like _Serenity_'s engine."

"Yeah," Chuck replied softly. "It's a topaz, which I had shaped to look like her engine. The band itself… well, there was some titanium from _Serenity_'s hull that cracked off in the crash, and the band is made out of that."

"My engagement ring is _Serenity_," Kaylee said quietly, with wonder in her voice. Wrapping her arms around Chuck's neck, she kissed him on the cheek, and then hugged him tightly.

"I love you, Chuck Bartowski."

* * *

**10:51 A.M.**

**The Gulfstream**

**In Flight over the Mohave Desert**

Chuck and Kaylee had been planning to announce what had happened onboard _Serenity_ once everybody was back on the Gulfstream, but Chuck immediately sensed that something wasn't right between Sarah and Mal. In fact, he could tell that something was very wrong.

Kaylee too noticed that Sarah was sitting in the very tail of the plane, while Mal was as close to the cockpit as he could get. "What's going on?" she asked Chuck.

"I don't know," he replied, "but I intend to find out."

He tried Mal first. "Hey, Mal," he said as he sat down.

Mal just grunted. "What's going on?" Chuck asked, a serious tone in his voice.

"Nothing," Mal replied crankily.

"Uh… are you sure?"

"Why don't you go ask Sarah," Mal quietly ordered Chuck.

"Ask her about what?" Chuck persisted.

Mal narrowed his eyes. "Just give her a message for me," he snapped. "Tell her I will be gorram humped before I let the United States turn _Serenity_ into any technology that the Alliance can use down the road."

Chuck's eyebrows went up. "Ooooh," he breathed out. Standing up, he turned and marched toward the back of the plane, sitting down next to Sarah.

"What?" she asked shortly.

"You can't let the Air Force dismantle and reverse engineer _Serenity_," Chuck replied without preamble.

"What am I supposed to do, Chuck?" Sarah asked, looking up wearily. "I'm the Deputy Director for Intelligence of the Central Intelligence Agency. I can't say, 'No, you can't have his ship!'"

"You're not just the DDI," Chuck said. "Mal loves you, and you are breaking his heart by doing this."

"He told you all this, did he?" Sarah questioned him sarcastically.

"No," Chuck replied. "However, it turns out that I have this funny tendency to observe subtleties and have my brain process them. I think that something called the Intersect may use this ability."

Sarah sighed. "I really can't do anything, though," she said. "The team from Area 51 is already at Edwards. They'll be heading out to the hangar in 15 minutes."

Chuck sighed. Standing, he put his hands in his pockets, making his car keys jangle together. "I think you can do better than that, Sarah," he said disappointedly. "I really – what?"

Sarah was staring wide-eyed at his pocket. "That's it," she whispered. She looked up at Chuck, the light bulb practically visible above her head. "That's it!"

"What?" Chuck said. "What's it?"

"The Herder," she replied excitedly. "Your old Herder. Is it still on board_ Serenity_?"

"Yes," Chuck stated slowly, "but it's pretty badly dam- wait a minute."

He looked at her incredulously. "Are you planning on doing what I think you're planning on doing?"

She didn't answer him. She had bounced up and was headed toward the front of the plane. "Kaylee," Sarah exclaimed as she approached her. "Do you have the remote control to the old Herder on you?"

Kaylee looked up. "Yeah," she replied, an odd look on her face. Reaching for the chain around her neck, Kaylee pulled out the remote control she had worn as a pendant for years.

Sarah looked up at Chuck. "Chuck?" she said. "That's your cue."

As Sarah used the remote control attached to the wall to change the screen at the front of the cabin to a split shot showing the interior of the hangar _Serenity_ was in and a satellite shot of the hangar, Chuck dialed the Nerd Herd corporate headquarters. "What exactly is going on?" Mal asked Sarah as he stood up.

Sarah shooshed him. "Nerd Herd, this is Anna," came the voice of Anna Grimes. "If it needs fixin', you need a Nerd!"

"Anna, it's Chuck," he said.

"What's up, Chuck?"

Chuck groaned. "I hate it when you say that. But we'll talk about it later. Right now I need the command console phone number for Herder 3."

There was a pause on the line. When Anna finally spoke again, she said, "Chuck, Herder 3 was totaled eleven years ago. You were driving it at the time."

"Doesn't matter," he replied. "I need the number. It should be in the archive."

It took Anna a moment to find the number. When she finally found it, she read it off to him, and asked what was going on.

"I'll explain later," he said, hanging up. Letting go of the hook button on the airfone, he dialed the number for Herder 3's command console, and put the phone on speaker.

It rang four times before finally answering. "Her-der Char-lie commmm-and con-sololole," came a damaged sounding mechanical voice.

"Herder Charlie, this is Big Chief One," Chuck said. "Authorization code 8675309."

Casey rolled his eyes. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Not my idea," Chuck replied. "Long before my time."

"Auth-or-i-i-i-za-tion accept-ed," Herder 3 replied. "Stat-us of Herder Char-lie is as foll-ow-ows. Ca-bin da-mag-ed-ed bey-ond accept-ab-le lim-it-its. Pro-pul-sioon dam-aged bey-ond accept-ab-le lim-it-its. Frame is cra-cra-cracked in se-ven dif-fer-ent pla-aces. Her-der Char-lie is in-in-inop-er-ative."

"Say status of self-destruct system," Chuck said.

Several of the _Serenity _crew gasped. "Self-dest-ruct-uct sys-tem is on-on-line and op-er-ative."

_Thank you, Lazslo_, Chuck thought to himself, thinking of the psychotic but brilliant kid who had designed the Herder so well. "Engage auto-destruct sequence."

He could see that the eyes of all of the _Serenity_ crew had gone wide – all except Mal's, who was developing a look of acceptance on his face.

"Auth-or-i-i-i-za-tion code," the Herder said.

"Eight One Eight Zelda Forty-Two," Chuck said.

"Auth-or-i-i-i-za-tion code ac-cep-ted," Herder 3 said. "Please de-fine ex-ec-u-tion lim-its."

"Immediate execution on remote command."

"Ac-cep-ted. A-wait-ing re-mote com-mand."

Chuck hung up the phone, as Sarah turned and handed the remote control to Mal. They locked eyes, and he took the remote from her.

"Thank you," he said.

Turning to the screen, he placed his thumb over the panic button on the Herder's remote. Very gently, he depressed the button.

For a second, nothing happened. Then, a violently bright flare of orange light ripped_ Serenity_ apart. Kaylee started to cry as the interior hangar camera went to static.

On the overhead satellite image, they watched in dumbfoundedness and a little bit of awe as the roof of the hangar blew off, and the four walls exploded outward. A massive orange fireball erupted into the sky, large enough that it could be seen from the Gulfstream, nearly a hundred miles away.

Mal continued to stare at the screen, even as the fireball receded. The smoke obscured the satellite picture somewhat, but the huge expanse of charred ground left him no doubt.

_Serenity_ was no more.


	14. Let No Man Put Asunder

**1:19 P.M.**

**Saturday, December 29****th****, 2018**

**Bel Air Presbyterian Church  
Bel Air, California**

The previous five months had gone by in a blur of planning and finger-pointing.

The CIA had been furious at Sarah's actions in allowing _Serenity_ to be destroyed. She had been placed on a leave of absence while a lengthy investigation was conducted. The investigation culminated with Sarah personally briefing President Bloomberg on the events of August 1st, 2018.

Following Sarah's personal brief to the President, the official punishment had come down – she would be strongly censured by the House Intelligence Committee. However, President Bloomberg issued an edict that any further punishment or persecution of Sarah Walker would be met with the harshest possible judgment, and that she would remain in the position of DD(I).

This had, of course, enraged a number of hardcore members of the CIA, including Bryce Larkin. However, Bryce had changed his state of mind when Chuck called him and informed him that he would either grow up or he would not be invited to the wedding.

Following the end of the investigation, Sarah had taken further leave, citing a need for time off to recover both mentally and physically from her ordeal in July. The truth in fact behind the time off was that she had gotten a bug up to plan Kaylee and Chuck's wedding, and nothing was going to stop her. Said bug had led Kaylee to eventually ask Sarah to be her maid of honor, a request which had almost caused Sarah to pass out. In addition to Sarah, Kaylee had asked Ellie, Zoe, and River to be bridesmaids – "pretty much all the women I know here," Kaylee had cracked.

For some reason, none of the women had trusted any of the men to plan one iota of the wedding. Sarah was the designated wedding planner, and Ellie, Zoe, and River were her "lackeys, with Kaylee reigning as Bride-on-High," Mal had grumbled one afternoon, as he, Chuck, and Devin were forced to wait outside yet another bridal shop. Ironically, the only male entrusted to any part of the planning was Jayne, who had generously offered the Playboy Mansion for the reception.

Life had, for the most part, returned to normal otherwise. Chuck had gone back to overseeing day-to-day operations of the Nerd Herd and the Omaha Project. His diet had been significantly modified to be more friendly to his hypertension, but aside from that, all was well.

Casey had been spending a lot more time in Los Angeles than before, claiming that as the chair of Buy More's board, he needed to be able to access the company's largest retail market during the holiday season. He thought he was fooling everybody, but everybody really saw through the bullshit and knew that he just wanted to spend time with Zoe.

Once Sarah's leave had ended, she had started shuttling back and forth between Los Angeles and Washington. She spent four days a week in Washington, the bulk of her time out at Langley, but an ever-increasing amount of time was also spent at the Pentagon and the White House. Friday through Sunday, she was back in L.A., to work on the wedding and see Mal. "Something's going to have to change," she had mentioned to Chuck one weekend. "This is the exhausting pace from hell."

The crew of _Serenity_, having already been "put into the system" by the CIA, were now given new lives – and hefty bank accounts to go with them. Mal reluctantly became a consultant for Boeing, after figuring out that the bulk of their business was civilian, not military. Zoe had started a high profile security firm. Simon had become a private practice physician, working out of Cedars-Sinai. Jayne and River, of course, were lords of the Playboy Empire. And Kaylee decided she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom – albeit a stay-at-home mom who kept the car running in top condition.

After the major hiccup of Mal and Sarah's argument over _Serenity_, they had found their way to make up with each other. Sarah's choice to destroy_Serenity_ to keep her from falling into the hands of the Air Force had made her star rise even higher in Mal's sky than it already had been – "Who knew it was possible for him to think more of her," Chuck had remarked in amazement.

The only real blip in anybody's life had come on the day after Thanksgiving. Trying to spend a relaxing day with friends and family, Chuck and Casey had instead had to fly to Seattle to straighten things out after a prank caller had convinced Nerd Herd members at six different Buy More stores to call out "pineapple" over the P.A. system, prompting the stores' evacuation.

Chuck's bachelor party had finally rolled around, two nights before Christmas. All manner of suggestions had been brought up – most of them including Vegas. Interestingly, it was Morgan's suggestion of a LAN party at the Playboy mansion that eventually won out. Unbeknownst to everybody else, Chuck had invited Bryce Larkin, who showed up and kicked everybody's asses in Call of Duty X.

On the day of the wedding, Chuck had set his alarm clock to go off at 8:00, but was up and wandering around at 6:00. Kaylee, Sarah, Ellie, Zoe, and River were all staying at the Hotel Bel-Air, so he wasn't concerned about running into any of them at the house. He was sitting in the kitchen of Devin and Ellie's house, drinking decaf coffee – "Such crap," he muttered – when Devin walked in.

"Morning, Chuckster," Devin said. "Couldn't sleep?"

"Well, yes and no," Chuck replied. "I slept fine until 6:00, and then I woke up and just couldn't fall asleep again."

"Nerves getting to you?"

"You could say that," Chuck admitted. "You know, you and Ellie's wedding day – you just looked so calm and collected. How'd you do that?"

Devin shook his head and smiled. "It's called a façade, Chuck. There I was, about to get married to this totally awesome woman. As long as we'd been together, I still had doubts about whether or not she'd take me as I was. I was a nervous wreck, but I put up my game face, because that's what you've gotta do."

Chuck looked at Devin in amazement. "I never had a clue."

Devin laughed. "That's why they call me Captain Awesome."

At 10:00, the caravan departed for Bel-Air – Chuck and Morgan in Chuck's DB7; Devin, Casey, Bryce, and the three kids in Devin's Suburban; and Mal and Jayne in Mal's giant Ford SuperDuty. "It's a man thing," Mal had offered lamely when Sarah asked him what the hell had possessed him to buy it. Simon was driving himself in his Corvette, since he had to go pick up Lou.

They arrived at Bel-Air Presbyterian Church at 11:00. Sarah met them in the parking lot, gave them a map of the church grounds with highlighted areas, and told them that under no circumstances were any of the men to go into the highlighted areas. "I have CIA snipers on the roofs to take down any man who does," she said.

"Sure you do," Casey replied sarcastically.

As the last two hours to the wedding counted down, Chuck found himself getting more and more nervous. He had been unable to tie his bowtie, and ended up asking Lou to do it when she arrived with Simon. He couldn't sit still, finding himself bouncing out of every chair he sat down in within two minutes. Bryce had to stop him pacing more than once. "You'll walk a new path in the carpet," the DD(O) had said with a laugh.

Finally, at 12:55, the pastor had poked his head into the room the men were waiting in. "It's time, gentlemen," he said.

Chuck could hear Bach's_Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring_ being played on the harpsichord as they entered from the side of the sanctuary – _on the harpsichord?_ he thought in surprise. As he reached his place on the chancel, he looked to the side of the church, and not only was there a harpsichord, but there was a pianist, an organist, a string quartet, and an electric guitarist, bassist, and drummer. "Wow," he breathed, as Morgan, Bryce, Casey, and Devin took their places next to him.

After a moment, the harpsichord fell silent as the string quartet began to play Pachelbel's _Canon in D_. That was apparently a cue of some sort, as Chuck saw an usher in the back of the church walk out into the narthex and give somebody a thumbs up. The side doors began to close, leaving only the main doors standing open. Then, little Chuck appeared in the doorway.

He began to march up the aisle holding a tiny pillow with Chuck and Kaylee's rings on it. They had been attached to the pillow using a very loose stitch, so that they wouldn't fall off, but would still be easy enough to be removed. The rings themselves had an odd look to them – Chuck still had a fair amount of the titanium from _Serenity_'s hull that he had had Kaylee's ring made from, so they had taken that to a jeweler, who managed to create bands that were twists of the titanium and fourteen karat gold. The exterior of each was etched with the words, "Peace, Love, Serenity," and the interior of each said, "Kaylee & Chuck, 12/29/18."

As little Chuck came up the aisle, there was a subtle shift in the sound of the strings, as they changed from _Canon in D_ to another song. Chuck knew the string part was familiar, but couldn't actually figure out what the song was.

Chuck was still racking his brain trying to figure out what the song was as Jordan came through the doorway and came walking down the aisle, dropping rose petals as she went. As little Chuck took his place next to his father and River appeared in the doorway, the melody began to play on the piano, and the light went on in Chuck's head.

"Of course," he whispered. "It's _Across the Universe_!"

Morgan overheard him. "That's a pretty appropriate song, wouldn't you say?"

Chuck smiled and shook his head, thinking back to that day, so long ago, when Kaylee had first heard the song on his iPhone. "You have no idea."

The song continued to play as Zoe came down the aisle, and then Sarah, building as it did so. Finally, it reached the climax of the song, and the guitars and drums kicked in as Kaylee appeared in the doorway. The congregation rose as one as Mal escorted Kaylee down the aisle to the altar.

When Chuck saw Kaylee, his smile grew so big that he felt like his face was going to split in two. Looking back at her, he saw a smile matching his own on her face. _Nothing's gonna change my world_, he thought as the Beatles song played. _Yeah, right_.

Kaylee and Mal stopped a few feet in front of the altar as the band finished the song. At that point, Devin looked over at Michael, sitting in the front row, and gave him a little nod. Michael stood, and climbed the steps of the chancel to the pulpit.

"A reading from the book of First Corinthians," he said in his little seven year-old voice.

"Love is patient, love is kind. Love is not envious, or boastful, or arrogant, or rude. It does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

"Love never ends."

As Michael descended from the chancel, the pastor intoned, "The Word of the Lord."

"Thanks be to God," the congregation replied.

"Please be seated.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together in the house of God, and in the presence of this company, to join together this man and woman in holy matrimony, which is commended to be honorable among all men; and therefore, is not by any, to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, and solemnly. Into this holy estate, these two persons present now come to be judged. If any person can show just cause why they may not be joined together, let them speak now, or forever hold their peace."

A smile spread on Simon's face, and he started to creep his hand upward, but Lou smacked him in the back of the head. "Knock it off."

"Marriage is the union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind. It is intended for their mutual joy, and for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity. But more importantly, it is a means through which a stable and loving environment may be attained."

"He looks really uncomfortable," Simon whispered to Jayne.

"Who does?" Jayne whispered back.

"Casey," Simon replied. "He looks like he's about to choke in that tuxedo."

"Through marriage, Charles Irving Bartowski and Kaywinnit Lee Frye make a commitment together to face their disappointments, embrace their dreams, realize their hopes, and accept each other's failures. Chuck and Kaylee will promise one another to aspire to these ideals throughout their lives together, through mutual understanding, openness, and sensitivity to each other."

Casey did, in fact, look like he was about to choke. "Guess he's just not real good with tuxedos," Jayne whispered.

"We are here today, before God, because marriage is one of His most sacred wishes, to witness the joining in marriage of Chuck and Kaylee. This occasion marks the celebration of love and commitment with which this man and this woman begin their lives together. And now, He joins you together in one of the holiest bonds.

"Who gives this woman in marriage to this man?"

"I do," said Mal, stepping forward. "Malcolm Reynolds. I give Kaylee on behalf of her family and friends."

Turning to Kaylee, he hugged her, and then kissed her gently on the cheek. Mal turned back to the front pew to sit, while Kaylee slowly climbed the steps of the chancel to stand facing Chuck.

"This is a beginning and a continuation of their growth as individuals. With mutual care, respect, responsibility and knowledge comes the affirmation of each one's own life happiness, growth and freedom. With respect for individual boundaries comes the freedom to love unconditionally. Within the emotional safety of a loving relationship – the knowledge self-offered one another becomes the fertile soil for continued growth. With care and responsibility towards self and one another comes the potential for full and happy lives.

"By gathering together all the wishes of happiness and our fondest hopes for Chuck and Kaylee from all present here, we assure them that our hearts are in tune with theirs. These moments are so meaningful to all of us, for 'what greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined together – to strengthen each other in all labor – to minister to each other in all sorrow – to share with each other in all gladness'."

"Daddy…" Little Chuck tugged on Chuck's pants leg. Chuck looked down. "I have to pee," his son whispered.

"Can it wait?" Chuck whispered back.

"Noooo…"

Chuck made eye contact with Mal, and pointed at little Chuck, then nodded his head slightly toward the back of the church. Mal nodded, gave little Chuck a "come here" signal, and escorted him to the narthex as a subdued giggle passed through the congregation.

"This relationship stands for love, loyalty, honesty and trust, but most of all for friendship. Before they knew love, they were friends, and it was from this seed of friendship that is their destiny. Do not think that you can direct the course of love – for love, if it finds you worthy, shall direct you."

Bryce leaned over to Morgan. "When do we get to the part where Chuck and Kaylee go off and have sex and we all go get plastered?" he whispered.

Morgan started to giggle. He tried, somewhat successfully, to restrain it, but succeeded solely in earning himself a dirty look from Sarah on the other side.

"Marriage is an act of faith and a personal commitment as well as a moral and physical union between two people. Marriage has been described as the best and most important relationship that can exist between them. It is the construction of their love and trust into a single growing energy of spiritual life. It is a moral commitment that requires and deserves daily attention. Marriage should be a life long consecration of the ideal of loving kindness – backed with the will to make it last."

Simon had started following along in one of Shepherd Book's old books of liturgy. "Here comes the good part," he whispered, elbowing a dozing Jayne in the side.

"Do you, Charles Irving Bartowski, take Kaywinnit Lee Frye to be your wife in holy matrimony? Do you promise to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sadness and in joy, to cherish and be devoted to, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?"

Chuck looked into Kaylee's eyes. The smile on his face could've powered every house in Los Angeles just then.

"I do," he said softly.

"Do you, Kaywinnit Lee Frye, take Charles Irving Bartowski to be your husband in holy matrimony? Do you promise to love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sadness and in joy, to cherish and be devoted to, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?"

Kaylee looked back at Chuck. Her smile looked just about bright enough to outshine the sun.

"I most definitely do."

"What token of love do you offer?"

Chuck looked down to take the rings from little Chuck. "Oh, crap," he muttered.

A smile started to spread itself across Casey's face. "This is why you give the rings to the best man," he whispered to nobody in particular.

"They're coming! They're coming!" Mal's voice rang out from the back of the church, as he ran forward, little Chuck, shaking with laughter, tucked under Mal's right arm like a football. As Mal ran, little Chuck grasped the rings in his right hand and pulled them off the pillow.

"Here you go, Daddy," little Chuck said, handing the rings to his father. A few people started to clap. Mal took a mock bow, and then returned to his seat.

Chuck turned and placed the rings in the pastor's hand.

"May these rings be blessed as the symbol of this affectionate unity. These two lives are now joined in one unbroken circle. Wherever they go, may they always return to one another. May these two find in each other the love for which all men and women yearn. May they grow in understanding and in compassion. May the home which they establish together be such a place that many will find there a friend. May these rings on their fingers symbolize the touch of the spirit of love in their hearts."

The pastor handed the smaller of the two rings back to Chuck.

"Chuck," he said, "as you place this ring on Kaylee's finger, please repeat these words: Kaylee, you are now consecrated to me as my wife from this day forward…"

"Kaylee, you are now consecrated to me as my wife from this day forward…"

"And I give you this ring as the pledge of my love and as the symbol of our unity…"

"And I give you this ring as the pledge of my love and as the symbol of our unity…"

"And with this ring, I thee wed."

"And with this ring, I thee wed." Chuck slipped the ring onto the ring finger of Kaylee's left hand.

The pastor turned to Kaylee and handed the other ring to her.

"Kaylee, as you place this ring on Chuck's finger –"

Kaylee cut him off. "Chuck Bartowski, you are now consecrated to me as my husband from this day forward, and I give you this ring as the pledge of my love and the symbol of our unity, and with this ring, I thee wed."

As she slipped the ring onto Chuck's finger, he mouthed, "Show-off." Kaylee nodded and giggled a little.

With an amused look, the pastor moved on to the last part. "May you always share with each other the gifts of love, be one in heart in mind, may you always create a home together that puts in your hearts love, generosity and kindness.

"In as much as Chuck and Kaylee have consented together in marriage before this company of friends and family and have pledged their faith, and declared their unity by giving and receiving a ring, they are now joined.

"You have pronounced yourselves husband and wife, but remember to always be each other's best friend.

"What, therefore, God has joined together, let no man put asunder.

"It is by the power vested in me by the State of California and by Almighty God that I now pronounce you husband and wife.

"Mr. Bartowski, you may kiss your bride!"

Chuck pulled Kaylee to him and kissed her, eliciting a round of applause, which quickly changed to laughter when little Chuck spouted off with an, "Ewwww!"

With a smile, the pastor looked out at the congregation and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Chuck and Kaylee Bartowski."

* * *

**3:15 P.M.**

**The Playboy Mansion**

**Bel Air, California**

When Jayne had offered the Playboy Mansion for the reception, Chuck had tried to offer him something in return. Jayne had outright refused. "Y'all are family," he had grumbled. "I ain't the type of person to be takin' money from family."

Now, as the reception was in full swing, Chuck looked around the back lawn of the Mansion to see the truly strange events that had come to pass. Mal and Sarah – he never would've expected that one. Less still, though, had he expected Casey and Zoe. He shook his head in astonishment.

"Oh wow," Morgan said as Casey planted a kiss on an unexpecting Zoe Washburne.

"She isn't putting up too much of a fight," said Bryce, planting himself in his seat at the front table.

Mal casually strolled up to the table. "So, you folks aren't gonna believe this," he muttered, just loud enough for Bryce to hear.

"Oh, gossip?" Bryce asked. "Always fun."

"Not gossip… fact, actually," Mal replied.

He stopped for a moment. "Sarah's pregnant."

Chuck, Morgan, and Bryce just stared back at him in stunned silence, Chuck's fork falling out of his hand and clattering to the table. "What?" Morgan finally said.

"Two months," Mal said, "and I think she just told Kaylee."

"I think you're right," Chuck said, as he watched Kaylee jump up and down and throw her arms around Sarah.

Then Chuck stood up and tapped his champagne flute with a spoon. "Ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement to make."

The back lawn fell silent. "What the hell are you doing?" Mal muttered.

"I have just been told some quite joyous news," Chuck said. "Seven months from now –"

"Give or take a few days," Simon called out, knowing immediately what Chuck was talking about, having been the one to tell Sarah.

"This ridiculous multi-century family will welcome another member. Sarah Walker and Mal Reynolds are expecting a kid of their own."

A round of applause broke out, as Sarah stood and smiled – and shot Chuck a "you're gonna pay for that one" look.

Chuck looked out over the lawn. His family, his friends, all gathered together. Four days after Christmas. "This is the real meaning of Christmas," he said softly, taking it all in.

"What do you mean?" asked Morgan, having heard him.

"Look around you," Chuck said. "Friends, family, all here. People are happy – which might be because the booze is flowing, but they're still happy. Pretty soon, we can probably expect Jayne and Awesome to start singing karaoke. You know, Casey and Zoe seem to have really clicked, Sarah's in love and having a kid with Mal – which is incredible – and I'm married to the most wonderful woman in the world."

"You're right, buddy, this is pretty incredible," Morgan replied. He clapped his hand on Chuck's shoulder.

"Yes, indeed, Morgan. All is right with the world."


	15. The Big Damn Epilogue

**4:52 P.M.**

**February 1****st****, 2527**

**Companion House Madrassa, planet Sihnon**

"Priestess Inara!" a voice called.

Inara turned, to see a Companion-in-training running toward her.

"Yes, my child?

"This was just delivered for you."

The trainee handed Inara an envelope. A fairly ancient envelope, from the looks of it. It had been stamped with the seal of the National Security Agency.

Looking at it, Inara saw that it was addressed to her, in care of Companion House Madrassa, to be delivered February 1st, 2527. The return address, though, puzzled her.

"Malcolm and Sarah Reynolds," the label said. "Bethesda, Maryland."

"What in heaven's name," she whispered to herself, opening the envelope.

Inside was a single secure digital memory stick. Removing it and looking at it curiously, she placed it in the reader attached to her computer – and Mal's face appeared on her screen.

"Howdy there, Inara!" he said enthusiastically. "This is the ghost of Malcolm Reynolds, speaking to you from 500 years in the past."

"Goofball," she muttered with a smile.

"By now, you've no doubt heard reports that _Serenity_ disappeared without a trace somewhere between Persephone and Greenleaf. While it is true we disappeared, the reports of our demise are somewhat exaggerated.

"Renegade agents of the NSA sent us back in time in an attempt to cause us to crash someplace where we would never be found. However, they failed to take into account River's superior piloting skills, which saved us when we crashed.

"Interestingly enough, we ended up crashing on Earth-that-was, in the early 21st century. And in an odd twist, who found us but our old friend, Chuck Bartowski.

"That was followed by a strange little piece of business where said renegade agents followed us back, met up with their compatriots from the 21st century, and tried to kill some folks. During those events, something odd happened.

"Zoe fell in love, with John Casey – Jayne's ancestor. Jayne and River went to this city called Las Vegas and came back having won over 500 million dollars from the casinos there. I think that River may have cheated -"

"I didn't cheat!" River's voice came from off-screen.

"- but who cares if she did, really. Kaylee rekindled her love for Chuck, and I found myself having an odd connection with Sarah Walker.

"Anyway, after all was said and done, we as a crew made the decision – and a difficult one it was – to stay in the 21st century. The damage to_ Serenity_ was irreparable, and we decided it was time for all of us to stop running from the Alliance.

"So, Kaylee and Chuck got married. The ceremony was beautiful. There are pictures of it in another directory on the memory stick. Zoe and Casey, believe it or not, are expecting little boy – they're going to name him Hoban Washburne Casey... which, I guess, means he will probably be going by Wash, just like his namesake. There are ultrasound pictures of him on the memory stick as well. We have determined that this means that Zoe is Jayne's several-times-over great-grandmother. Try to wrap your head around that.

"Jayne used his new found fortune to buy an entertainment enterprise known as Playboy. It's right up his alley. Simon's working at a hospital called Cedars-Sinai, and River managed to get drunk and get married in a casino chapel to the Air Force pilot who flew the _Enterprise_ when they came for Chuck all those years ago.

"As for me… believe it or not, I finally settled down. Sarah and I got married a little while back. We had our first kid a couple months after we got married – yes, that means she was pregnant before we got married; don't tell my mother. Oh, wait, she's dead.

"Anyway, because 36 is a little late in life for a woman of this time period to have her first child, her doctor was concerned that the child might develop something called Down Syndrome, but she turned out just fine.

"We named her Lisa Derrial Reynolds – Derrial, after Shepherd Book, and Lisa because that is apparently Sarah's **real** middle name. You probably won't believe it, but Sarah Walker isn't actually her real name. It was her undercover name, but she spent so long as Sarah Walker that she became Sarah Walker. Now, she told me her real name, but I'm only allowed to call her by it if she's feeling dirty."

Mal's head suddenly jolted in the video, as it was evident that Sarah had overheard him and smacked him in the back of the head. She stuck her face into view.

"Don't listen to him," she said with a smile. "Malcolm Reynolds is a filthy, perverted old man."

Sarah turned to Mal and kissed him, and then exited the video frame.

"Sorry about that," Mal said. "Anyway, everybody wanted to say hi, so…"

The video panned out, and there was the whole crew of _Serenity_, plus Sarah, Casey, and Chuck. "Hi, Inara!" they all called, waving. "Have good sex!" Kaylee added in a shout.

Inara smiled and shook her head at that one.

The camera zoomed back in on Mal. "So that's all. I hope all is well for you. We miss you, Inara. Take care."

The video ended, and the screen went dark again. Inara smiled sadly and removed the SDM stick from the reader. She felt a curious mix of happiness and sadness – sadness that she'd never see her friends again, happiness that they'd finally found peace and joy in their lives.

"Godspeed," she whispered. "And good luck."

* * *

**2:34 P.M.**

**March 15****th****, 2021**

**Office of Bryce Larkin, DD(O), CIA**

**Washington, DC**

"Alright, send him in," Bryce said to his secretary over the intercom.

His door opened, and a kid entered. At least, he looked like a kid. "Doctor Mark Winger," he introduced himself.

"You're a doctor?" Bryce asked him in disbelief. "You look like you're 19."

"Twenty-three, actually," Dr. Winger said. "The CIA grabbed me when I was young."

"No doubt," Bryce muttered. "So, what do you have for me?"

"Well," Dr. Winger replied, "we've been working with some of the technology we recovered from Frank Mullins' shuttle."

"Good Lord," Bryce exclaimed. "That was almost three years ago."

"That's how long it's taken us to figure some of it out," Dr. Winger said. "But we've finally come up with our first device from the technology. Here."

He set the device on Bryce's desk. Bryce just looked at it. "What is it?"

Dr. Winger simply said, "Put it on."

Bryce did. He held it up and looked at it. "So, what does it do?"

"It's incredible," Winger replied excitedly. "It's one size fits all – it'll conform to any person's hand, no matter how big or small. It keeps your hand at a consistent temperature, and your hand doesn't sweat."

Then he smiled and leaned in on Bryce's desk. "But here's the best thing. It can be reprogrammed to make you anybody – your fingerprints can become anybody else's fingerprints, or you can become nobody at all."

Bryce held it up again and looked at it in disbelief. "That's incredible," he finally spoke. "I mean, if I didn't know better, I'd think it was just a…

Blue.

Latex.

Glove."

_fin_

* * *

_ And so ends _Chuck vs. the Past_. It comes time now to put the good ship Chuckaylee on the shelf so that I can return to _Chuck vs. the Pie-Maker 

_A quick word about some of the locations in the story. With the exception of Chuck's fictional mansion in Rancho Palos Verdes - and obviously, the Buy More shopping plaza on Santa Monica Blvd. - all the locations in this story are real. Cedars-Sinai Hospital, the Beverly Center, South Coast Plaza, Bel-Air Presbyterian Church, and obviously, the Playboy Mansion and Disneyland are all very real locations in Los Angeles. As far as Phoenix goes, the Chase Tower is the tallest skyscraper in Phoenix; Deer Valley Municipal Airport really is on 19th Avenue, Central and Dunlap do intersect just south of North Mountain, U-Haul does in fact have their corporate headquarters at 2701 N. Central Avenue, and believe it or not, there really is an abandoned old CostCo at 27th Avenue and Bell Road._

_It really doesn't feel like it's only been thirteen days since I started writing _Chuck vs. the Future_. I'd like to thank you for taking the time to read my flights of fancy, and I hope you enjoyed yourself. See you 'round the 'verse.   
_


End file.
